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5ewh3i | why does the brain completely miss obvious changes to otherwise familiar surroundings? | For instance, my older sister hung a large painting by the door in the entryway. Despite the fact that her husband walks in and out of the front door, directly past that painting multiple times a day, it took him 2 weeks and someone pointing it out for him to notice the painting. Same thing when she put a bunch of little figurines and statues on the normally empty table under the TV. He completely missed them, until someone pointed it out. I've been guilty of something like this myself, the other day I locked my friend in the garage by mistake because I went looking for them throughout the house, looked in the garage, directly at him and then I turned off the light and shut the door. He says he even held up a hand to let me to know he'd be in in a second. I have absolutely no memory of seeing him sitting by my car on the phone in the garage. I remember seeing an empty garage with the lights flipped on for some reason. I suppose it's the same as missing that someone you see everyday got their hair cut. What causes our brains to miss something that's so obviously different somewhere where we know more or less every detail of the place? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ewh3i/eli5_why_does_the_brain_completely_miss_obvious/ | {
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"I have no technical answer but I would imagine the familiarity of the place is the cause. You have a routine, coming home you may not notice that someone hung a painting or cleaned the house. Also it may be based on the person too some people are very observant when it comes to changes"
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3g6ke4 | how does crying come so easily to us as kids but not as adults. | example: we don't get the toy we wanted, so we start to cry and the tears just start flowing. I don't even remember the last time I cried as an adult. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3g6ke4/eli5_how_does_crying_come_so_easily_to_us_as_kids/ | {
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"I’m not sure what you’re talking about; I still cry all the time as an adult, just about less trivial matters.",
"As a young child, crying is one of the only ways we know to deal with disappointment. As an adult, we know a lot more ways, and can deal with our problems in less expressive ways. "
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1105ry | today's unemployment numbers, where they come from, and are they accurate? | I had a mildly partisan discussion with a coworker about the recently released [unemployment statistics](_URL_0_) that appear to show an improvement as we head into the election season. I try to get my news from sources on both sides, but most of what I've heard amounts to "These are genuine numbers that show real improvement, and the Republicans are sore losers." My boss listens to conservative radio and naturally got a whole different take, which included what appear to be legitimate issues regarding how the number was derived (something about telephone surveys, a sudden, unexplained jump in the number of people who claim to have jobs, and other details).
Can anyone who knows something about these things tell me if we have truly made a 0.3% dent in unemployment or if someone's just juking the stats like on The Wire? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1105ry/eli5_todays_unemployment_numbers_where_they_come/ | {
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"There are two ways the BLS measures unemployment - they ask people if they are unemployed (called the Current Population Survey) and they ask businesses how many people they employ (Current Employment Statistics). The unemployment rate you generally hear comes from the Current Population Survey.\n\nWhat the BLS does is take a representative samples of different households and asks them some questions. Because of certain theories in statistics (Strong Law of Large Numbers, Central Limit Theorem), we know that in very large samples we can make a \"good\" estimation of the total population. The sample size is 60,000 which should be plenty big (there is no way to really tell how many observations we need as a general rule of thumb, since the theorems kick in as the number approaches infinity, but the number can be as low as 30 in some instances and 60,000 is pretty safe). \n\nAnyway, the survey asks questions, such as whether the person is employed, if it is part-time or not, if they are looking for work if they are unemployed, how long have they been looking for work, etc.. Depending on the answers, they will give different measurements with different weights. \n\nThen they separate the unemployment figures into six different categories, U1-U6, after they crunch the numbers. What we hear most often is U3, as it tends to be less noisy and economists like data which isn't noisy as it is better for analysis. This is where people like to shout conspiracy. In any case, you can view this month's numbers of them all [here](_URL_0_). \n\nSo what made the 0.3% dent in unemployment? Well, the numbers for the previous months were revised upwards by a large amount. September's numbers were actually mediocre, so most of the gains came from the revisions of July and August. The revisions usually happen because of the way estimation is done - the more and better data you have, the better your estimators.\n\nIf you'd like to read more, you can do so at the BLS website.\n\n_URL_1_\n\n_URL_3_\n\nIf you want to get deeper into their estimation procedures, there is this next link. It may be harder to understand if you don't have a background in statistics or econometrics.\n\n_URL_2_"
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6secrf | how does spending huge amounts of money on the military by the government pay off? i.e., unlike spending on technology or resource extraction which inherently produces materials or products that have value, what does the military produce that has inherent value? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6secrf/eli5_how_does_spending_huge_amounts_of_money_on/ | {
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"security, stability, and jobs. When your looking to set up shop for your massive international company, you want to know that you wont get displaced by a warlord that wants to take what you have.\n\nTheres certainly some research gains in the defense industry, things that come out of places like lockheed and boeing defense programs that advance technology.",
"Well the military has a huge technology section. GPS was invented by and for the military until it was allowed to be used by the public. Many other fabrics and materials are also invented by the military. Also nuclear energy? Well we got that by funding the nuclear bomb program during WWII. Many other drugs and such are also developed by the military.\n\nTimes of war create huge booms in technology and material sciences which generally make their way to the public in sometime.",
"A large number of consumer goods have come into existence due to military funded projects. From GPS Navigation used in millions of cars, to the Jet engine that the civilians airline industry uses today, to the microwave oven found in most homes in the United States. Other items include digital cameras, canned food, tampons, and the EpiPen.",
"A lot of the money provided to the military from taxes is used in ways that returns that money back to the taxpayers in the first place. Things like wages, pensions, and other benefits paid directly to military personnel are examples of that when they spend that money on stuff for themselves. There's also companies that aren't military themselves, but get paid by the military for goods and services. Most of this money comes back to taxpayers as well. Companies like Boeing, Lockheed-Martin, and Blackwater are examples of that. Some of the money for non-military companies doesn't get back to taxpayers very effectively because those companies make profits and some profits are kept in cash reserves or invested rather than spent. Also, given the enormous amounts of money used by the military there's always opportunities for some of that money to be stolen, but the military doesn't like to talk about that.",
"The Department of Defense (which is the organization that gets all those \"military\" dollars) employs over 2,000,000 people. They are the single largest employer in the world.\n\nAdditionally, there are hundreds of thousands more people that work for companies like Lockheed-Martin that exist almost solely for developing tech for the military.\n\nThey do not burn all that money you keep hearing about. They pay people and pay private companies. It all goes right back into the economy. ",
"To name but a few:\n\n* Digital photography\n* Night vision\n* Radar\n* GPS\n* Freeze drying\n* EpiPens\n* Walkie-talkies (two-way hand held radios)\n* Cargo pants\n* Duct tape\n* early Computers (eg ENIAC)\n* Microwave (ovens)\n\n...and of course...\n\n* the Internet\n\n\nThe military in 2017 has approximately 2 million employees either active or in reserve. They invests money in ways to save money, which can be ways of helping people survive combat, helping make equipment cheaper to build or deliver, etc...\n\nFor instance, if they can save $1 per all employees with an improvement, they have instantly saved 2 million dollars. Once they have created an improvement they will often hand that improvement to the public (which they are required to do by law unless it is classified). Once the public can use it, companies may build businesses off of those improvements, or improve them even more.\n\nIn recent years the military has worked directly with the public to make the process even more efficient by taking ideas and asking public companies to suggest what are called COTS solutions.\n\nCOTS stands for \"commercial off-the-shelf\" or \"commercially available off-the-shelf\". The idea is to avoid those million dollar hammers you used to hear about in the 1980's by making everything from products you can buy from a retail store.\n\n*edit, added list of inventions more to OPs question*",
"Well, it has produced immeasurable technological innovations, such as GPS. It's lead to incredible breakthroughs in all facets of life, from the medicinal field (modern hygienics were expanded upon and practiced to keep militaries healthy, increased pharmaceutical funding for the same reason) to incredible engineering (everything from rocketship-mathematics to WD-40).\n\nHowever, military spending can be strategic as well. For example, the bases the United States maintains in foreign territories greatly increases its economic and bargaining leverage, as well as opens up borders to trade, often an overlooked facet of this.",
"Most governments would like to continue being governments. Without a military this is unlikely. For an analogy. Wal-Mart stores typically employ various forms of security to monitor cameras which are paid for by the store, or patrol the store, with the goal of preventing shoplifting. These people produce no value directly, but prevent losses.",
"Guns and Butter. Imagine a world where the only 2 things that matter are guns and butter. Butter is useful and guns are only useful to take or defend the butter. If a society didn't invest sufficiently in guns another could force them to give up their butter, so the investment in guns in and of itself had a payoff in how much less butter would be taken from that society, ignoring all externatlities like new tech developed for the military.\n\nOf course those externalities defiantly exist for instance the US basically guarantees the safety of the worlds oceans for trading vessels allowing the US to trade. Bases in Europe provided the same thing in making sure the USSR didn't invade allowing the US to trade with Europe after WWII.\n\n\nFor more information:\n_URL_0_"
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6342g5 | why do you need a lawyer? | What is the actual point of a lawyer in legal cases? If you knew the law well enough, do you still need one? Is it just a formality? Thanks! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6342g5/eli5_why_do_you_need_a_lawyer/ | {
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"If you know the law well enough and you know the way courtroom proceedings should go (basically if you're a lawyer) then you don't need a lawyer.\n\nLawyers do quite a few major things. They compile the evidence received from the police and other sources into an argument. They know the law and what the law says about most situations. If they don't know what the law says without reference, they can read legalese. When you do get to court, your lawyer knows how to follow procedure quickly and efficiently (so, how to enter evidence and when to make arguments, etc.). Your lawyer also knows the right questions to ask and the right buttons to push to get a witness to say something the court can use in your favor. And in a really bad bind, your lawyer can make a deal with the other lawyer so you get a reduced penalty.",
"The legal system is vast and complex. Lawyers specialize in laws and the legal system and have knowledge and experence that far exceses the common person. Think of it as the same reason we need mechanics for cars a d teachers for school.",
"You can represent yourself, but lawyers often have experience and access to resources to better help you. Also of note is that lawyers often need lawyers. If a contract lawyer finds himself in criminal trouble, he or she would want a criminal lawyer because the other lawyer would know much more about that area of the law. The law is super complex and it's not just the law that you have to know, but also any other cases that are similar.",
"The main purpose of a lawyer is to have an expert in the law advising you.\n\nEven if you know the law well, it is also important to have a dispassionate party representing you. They can give you objective, unbiased advice, and can act on your behalf in situations where it might not be wise or proper for you to do so. ",
"In addition to all these answers:\n\nLawyers, prosecutors, judges - judicial branch professionals, if you will - are a community of their own. In very much the same way that police are a 'family' and hold themselves and their comrades above and apart from the rest of us, these folks have established rapport and procedure and dislike shakeups as much as anyone else. A common 'civilian' stepping up to the plate alone can be seen as at least an inconvenience to their carefully-crafted rapport with each other, and at worst a threat to their professionalism and/or competence in their field. They simply 'don't take kindly to strangers'.\n\nI imagine this opinion will be unpopular; still, it is mine based solely upon observation within the system."
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3zdgx4 | why if i eat 5 pounds of meat, i don't gain 5 pounds. (pre bathroom) | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3zdgx4/eli5_why_if_i_eat_5_pounds_of_meat_i_dont_gain_5/ | {
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"You'll gain five pounds immediately, but if you wait a while to use the bathroom you'll be exhaling CO*_2_* and water vapor, which you get from digesting the carbohydrates in your food.",
"You do gain five pounds. You're also constantly losing some weight though. What you breathe in is lighter than what you breathe out, because you're adding water and carbon. You also lose some water through your skin.\n\n(you breathe out fat you burn too!) _URL_0_",
"16x5=80oz of meat? Are you sure your example is realistic? \nThe likely reason is an 8oz Beef steak when cooked will weigh 5-7oz depending on fat content and doneness. Most meats especially beef and ground products are usually listed as a pre cooked weight. Or for the matter an 80oz steak, might become a 72 oz steak after being cooked. \n\nEdit: Spelling for 5 year Olds. "
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1vxweq | how do people find bugs in websites like facebook, google... ? | Edit: Something like this:
_URL_0_
"Brazilian computer engineer foung bug on Facebook and was paid $33,000" | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1vxweq/eli5how_do_people_find_bugs_in_websites_like/ | {
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"Not sure if you are referring to those working for the respective companies or users using the products. \n\nIf the latter then unexpected behavior is a bug. Example you hit the \"Like\" button and nothing happens or something entirely different happens which isn't supposed to happen. "
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3c7zyp | why is it that when the inside of my ear itches, swallowing seems like the best option to scratch it? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3c7zyp/eli5_why_is_it_that_when_the_inside_of_my_ear/ | {
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"Your nose, throat and inner ear are all connected by a series of tubes, this is to keep the pressure of your inner ear the same as the outside, the act of swallowing creates a pressure change in your ear before it goes back to 'outside pressure' the pressure difference is what makes you feel like you're scratching.\n\nIncidentally this is why yawning and chewing gum on airplanes makes your ears pop. because you're helping your inner ear equalise with the cabin pressure"
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s2eqy | explain greece abandoning the euro like i'm 5 – using disney dollars | Wouldn't greece adopting the Dracma to solve it's debts be very much like Disney deciding to pay it's employees in Disney Dollars so it can use US Dollars to pay off it's creditors?
How can that solve anything? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/s2eqy/explain_greece_abandoning_the_euro_like_im_5/ | {
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"Assuming the Disney employees aren't spending anything outside Disneyland, it'll work just fine. It's all about the perceived value of fiat money. If this Disney dollar in your hand will buy you just as much bread from the shop as the euro you previously used, why would you complain? \n\nIt also allows the government (Disney Board of Directors) to change the value of the currency as they see fit, something they couldn't do before on the euro. So you switch to a new currency, massively devalue it, people stop buying stuff from outside because now it's too expensive, external debts decrease (or at least slow down), everyone's spending their money locally instead of buying expensive imports, local economy gets a boost. Also has the added benefit of making your exports look comparatively cheaper, though Greece doesn't really have a significant export market.",
"The value of the euro, or any currency, isn't fixed. It goes up and down, based on the strength of their economy and those of the countries they trade with.\n\nRight now, the euro is still pretty strong, because it is tied to the economies of countries like Germany and France. For the Greeks who are paid in euros and have euros in their savings accounts, their money is relatively safe.\n\nBut if Greece switched back to the drachma, its value would only be based on the Greek economy, which is in shambles. Its value would plummet, and anything imported to Greece, like oil and energy, would become very expensive. "
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3uzq17 | why is our calendar set up the way it is? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3uzq17/eli5_why_is_our_calendar_set_up_the_way_it_is/ | {
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"Depends upon what you mean exactly. The calendar we use today is known as the Gregorian Calendar.\n\nHowever, the Gregorian Calendar is simply an \"update\" to the Julian Calendar, which was itself an \"update\" to the Roman Calendar, which was probably based off of Greek Hellenic Calendars, which were more or less all based off of lunar cycles.\n\nEach consecutive iteration of the year calendar simply made attempts to make it more accurate; obviously it's still not perfect, since we need leap years, but it's pretty close.\n\nMonths were originally based off of lunar cycles, but now have been modified to fit the requirements for a more accurate yearly calendar (which is why full/new moons *kind of* align with months, but not really).\n\nWeeks are as long as they are, because 7 days is *roughly* a quarter of a lunar cycle. The history is a bit more complicated than that, but that's the really simply answer.\n\nDays, obviously, were just how long it takes the sun to reach the same spot in the sky again.\n\n\n",
"Tidbit: Kodak used the [International Fixed Calendar](_URL_0_) from 1928 until 1989. \n\nEvery year has exactly 52 weeks divided in 13 months.\n\nTwelve months are named and ordered the same as those of the Gregorian calendar, except that the extra month is inserted between June and July, and called \"Sol\" (homage to the sun).\n\n\nEach month has exactly 28 days divided in 4 weeks.\n\nSee above link for other interesting advantages and disadvantages."
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533bsd | what causes different frequencies of light? | All frequencies of light produce different types of color. I understand that different objects reflect light differently, but what *causes* that? Are the molecules of the object created in such a way that they act as a capacitor, thus collecting energy from light "packets" then releasing them at a different frequency once they overload? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/533bsd/eli5_what_causes_different_frequencies_of_light/ | {
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"Frequency is color.\n\nFirst a small excourse to atoms: As you probably know, atoms consist of a nucleus and electrons. The electrons swirl around the nucleus, and they do so on fixed orbits. For a given nucleus (defined by the number of protons and neutrons) there is only a limited, and well defined number of possible orbits the electrons can travel on.\n\nThose orbits represent energy levels, the higher the orbit, the higher the energy.\n\nUsually, electrons want to stay in the lowest orbit possible (least energy), and if there's a lower orbit that isn't occupied by another electron, they'll switch to the lower orbit.\n\nNow, as you may noticed, the higher orbit has more energy, so where did that go? Well, it was emitted in form of a photon. That is, light.\n\nAnd what we perceive as color is just the frequency of the light. The frequency in turn is determined by the energy of the photon. Higher energy = > higher frequency.\n\nThis process can also run in reverse, that is a photon hits an electron and pushes it up to a higher enery level. \nThe possibilities here are: \n\n* the photon has too little energy to actually push the electron up a level, so the electron gets excited for a short time and then emitts a photon with the same frequency again\n\n* the photon has *just* enough energy to push the electron up. The electron then stays in the higher orbit for a while. Then it realizes, that there's a lower orbit and so it jumps back to the lower orbit, emitting a photon in the process.\n\n* the photon has *more* energy than needed. This results in a combination of both points above. If the higher energy level requires *A* energy and the photon has (*A+B*) energy, then the electron will jump up one level, emit a photon with energy *B*, stay a while, jump down and emit a photon with energy *A*.\n\nThe last point actually changes the color of the emitted light."
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2e083f | what did rick perry actually do? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2e083f/eli5what_did_rick_perry_actually_do/ | {
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"He told a person that she should resign.\n\nShe said, no, she didn't want to resign.\n\nHe said that if she didn't resign, he would veto all funding to her office.\n\nShe didn't. He did.\n\nHe was indicted for using his veto power inappropriately and coercively. "
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mutop | let's say the euro collapses tonight. how will this affect the average household within the eurozone tomorrow morning? | I understand the context of the euro crisis but I still am totally unclear as to how this is going to affect the average person in europe.
If you could also include how this will affect people outside the eurozone who are holding assets in euros (i.e. why everyone is transferring money holdings into foreign currencies), I'd be much obliged. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mutop/eli5_lets_say_the_euro_collapses_tonight_how_will/ | {
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"There have been similar events in other countries, e.g. Russian ruble collapse in 1998. According to wikipedia:\n > Russian inflation in 1998 reached 84 percent and welfare costs grew considerably. \n\n > Prices for almost all Russian food items had gone up by almost 100%, while imports had quadrupled in price. Many citizens were stocking up for bad times and throughout the country shop shelves were being emptied, leaving a shortage of even the most basic items\n\n > millions of people lost their life savings from the bank closures.\n",
"One was that you may be be affected is this: say you have €1,000 in the bank. Then the Euro collapses, and loses it's value. The prices for goods and services will increase. But unfortunately, you will still only have €1,000 in the bank. ",
"It basically depends on where you live and how strong the economy of the country. If the whole Eurozone collapses the single countries will go back to their respective currencies.\n\nYou live in Germany? \nThat's good if you want to buy something because the Mark would be rather strong based on the german economy.\nYou want to export something out of Germany?\nThat's bad for you because of the strong german currency your product will be expensive compared to, let's say italian products.\n\nKill me if I'm wrong on this.",
"One thing that is bad in financial markets is uncertainty. If I don't know much something is going to be worth tomorrow I feel very uncertain about it and I might want to sell it today.\n\nWhen the euro breaks up everyone will look at the money in their bank and think, \"how much will this be worth tomorrow when it is turned into francs or pesos or marks? Who knows?\" They'll feel very uncertain so a lot of them will want to sell it, which means converting it into other currencies.\n\nThe problem with this is that selling this money will *make* it be worth less. So the more that people do this, the more other people will want to do this because they will see that the money they have is dropping in value every day.\n\nAnd because financial markets move very quickly all this will happen within hours of the breakup of the euro. In fact it has probably started happening already.",
"The experts are also unclear on what would happen, because this really hasn't happened before:\n\n* It's weird for countries with healthy economies to experience currency collapse.\n* It's weird to have a large number of countries all fail at the same time. \n* The amount of money these countries and the US all owe each other is unprecedented.\n\nThere's a general concensus that it will be pretty chaotic, but you really have to take with a grain of salt anyone who claims to really know exactly what's going to happen. I have been reading blogs written by economists, and they're all arguing with each other right now.\n\nThe one thing that you probably should be aware of is that economies are big machines. Machines need *all* their parts. When one part breaks, the whole thing shuts down. Like in the US, during 2008: the banks were the part that broke, but the whole economy ground to a halt.\n\nSo basically, you can pretty much assume that *some* \"part\" will break, and that no matter which \"part\" breaks, exactly, you can pretty much expect that the economy will slow down a lot.\n\n",
"Lets assume that all the countries in the Eurozone decide to go back to their own national currencies. To simplify the issue, lets consider two cases: Germany as an example of a strong country and Italy as an example of a weak one.\n\nThe conversion happens when the government passes a law that immediately converts all bank loans and deposits from Euros to the national currency (Lira for Italy, Marks for German), and introduces new notes and coins into circulation. The governments decide that 1 Euro will convert into 1 Mark or Lira at midnight. Subsequently the Lira falls in value, and the Mark rises in value, so that 1 Mark is worth 2 Lira. Its important to realise that everyone knows in advance that the Mark will risk and the Lira fall, both by large amounts. \n\nThere are several possible consequences, which mostly effect Italy.\n\nUnless the Italian government can keep the upcoming conversion totally secret, the population of the country will try to withdraw their Euros from the domestic banks before the conversion, and deposit them in an overseas bank where they won't be devalued. (Ideally a German bank, so they get changed into marks, but maybe a Swiss bank, or even a British one). If everyone tries to do this at once, there will be a bank run. Bank have leant money out to people and businesses on a long term basis, and are not able to get it back quickly. If everyone asks for their money bank all at once, the bank does have enough. Banks will not be able to let people take money out, and will have to close their doors. People will be unable to get money to buy ordinary things like food. Businesses will be unable to pay wages. The economy will experience a severe recession, and many people will lose their jobs. This is why the weaker countries haven't left the Eurozone.\n\nGermany will not have a bank run, as everyone knows their currency will rise in value. However as an export driven economy, a rise in the value of their currency will be problematic. Their goods will be more expensive to international buyers, and fewer of them will be bought. This would result in job losses, although on a far lower level than in Italy.\n\nThis secrecy will be very difficult, since the conversion would require a debate in parliament before the law could be passed, which everyone would know about. \n\nEven if we do assume that all this can happen secretly and suddenly, it could still bring down the banking system. \n\nFor example, Italy owes the French banks more than EUR 350bn. If Italy decides to go back to the lira, and then lira falls in value, the French banks take a very large loss. These will cause people to lose confidence in the French banking system, which could cause a bank run there too.\n\nThere are also unpredictable legal consequences. If a German and an Italian company signed a deal in Euros, its not clear what that means now, especially if the deal was done under UK law, which is common. This will keep the lawyers busy for decades. \n \n(my first go at one of these)",
"**Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!**",
"As long as none of your load-bearing walls are using Euro studs, you'll be fine. ",
"Will this make the dollar stronger in the short term, even as crappy as our economy is because it's the world's reserve currency?",
"There have been similar events in other countries, e.g. Russian ruble collapse in 1998. According to wikipedia:\n > Russian inflation in 1998 reached 84 percent and welfare costs grew considerably. \n\n > Prices for almost all Russian food items had gone up by almost 100%, while imports had quadrupled in price. Many citizens were stocking up for bad times and throughout the country shop shelves were being emptied, leaving a shortage of even the most basic items\n\n > millions of people lost their life savings from the bank closures.\n",
"One was that you may be be affected is this: say you have €1,000 in the bank. Then the Euro collapses, and loses it's value. The prices for goods and services will increase. But unfortunately, you will still only have €1,000 in the bank. ",
"It basically depends on where you live and how strong the economy of the country. If the whole Eurozone collapses the single countries will go back to their respective currencies.\n\nYou live in Germany? \nThat's good if you want to buy something because the Mark would be rather strong based on the german economy.\nYou want to export something out of Germany?\nThat's bad for you because of the strong german currency your product will be expensive compared to, let's say italian products.\n\nKill me if I'm wrong on this.",
"One thing that is bad in financial markets is uncertainty. If I don't know much something is going to be worth tomorrow I feel very uncertain about it and I might want to sell it today.\n\nWhen the euro breaks up everyone will look at the money in their bank and think, \"how much will this be worth tomorrow when it is turned into francs or pesos or marks? Who knows?\" They'll feel very uncertain so a lot of them will want to sell it, which means converting it into other currencies.\n\nThe problem with this is that selling this money will *make* it be worth less. So the more that people do this, the more other people will want to do this because they will see that the money they have is dropping in value every day.\n\nAnd because financial markets move very quickly all this will happen within hours of the breakup of the euro. In fact it has probably started happening already.",
"The experts are also unclear on what would happen, because this really hasn't happened before:\n\n* It's weird for countries with healthy economies to experience currency collapse.\n* It's weird to have a large number of countries all fail at the same time. \n* The amount of money these countries and the US all owe each other is unprecedented.\n\nThere's a general concensus that it will be pretty chaotic, but you really have to take with a grain of salt anyone who claims to really know exactly what's going to happen. I have been reading blogs written by economists, and they're all arguing with each other right now.\n\nThe one thing that you probably should be aware of is that economies are big machines. Machines need *all* their parts. When one part breaks, the whole thing shuts down. Like in the US, during 2008: the banks were the part that broke, but the whole economy ground to a halt.\n\nSo basically, you can pretty much assume that *some* \"part\" will break, and that no matter which \"part\" breaks, exactly, you can pretty much expect that the economy will slow down a lot.\n\n",
"Lets assume that all the countries in the Eurozone decide to go back to their own national currencies. To simplify the issue, lets consider two cases: Germany as an example of a strong country and Italy as an example of a weak one.\n\nThe conversion happens when the government passes a law that immediately converts all bank loans and deposits from Euros to the national currency (Lira for Italy, Marks for German), and introduces new notes and coins into circulation. The governments decide that 1 Euro will convert into 1 Mark or Lira at midnight. Subsequently the Lira falls in value, and the Mark rises in value, so that 1 Mark is worth 2 Lira. Its important to realise that everyone knows in advance that the Mark will risk and the Lira fall, both by large amounts. \n\nThere are several possible consequences, which mostly effect Italy.\n\nUnless the Italian government can keep the upcoming conversion totally secret, the population of the country will try to withdraw their Euros from the domestic banks before the conversion, and deposit them in an overseas bank where they won't be devalued. (Ideally a German bank, so they get changed into marks, but maybe a Swiss bank, or even a British one). If everyone tries to do this at once, there will be a bank run. Bank have leant money out to people and businesses on a long term basis, and are not able to get it back quickly. If everyone asks for their money bank all at once, the bank does have enough. Banks will not be able to let people take money out, and will have to close their doors. People will be unable to get money to buy ordinary things like food. Businesses will be unable to pay wages. The economy will experience a severe recession, and many people will lose their jobs. This is why the weaker countries haven't left the Eurozone.\n\nGermany will not have a bank run, as everyone knows their currency will rise in value. However as an export driven economy, a rise in the value of their currency will be problematic. Their goods will be more expensive to international buyers, and fewer of them will be bought. This would result in job losses, although on a far lower level than in Italy.\n\nThis secrecy will be very difficult, since the conversion would require a debate in parliament before the law could be passed, which everyone would know about. \n\nEven if we do assume that all this can happen secretly and suddenly, it could still bring down the banking system. \n\nFor example, Italy owes the French banks more than EUR 350bn. If Italy decides to go back to the lira, and then lira falls in value, the French banks take a very large loss. These will cause people to lose confidence in the French banking system, which could cause a bank run there too.\n\nThere are also unpredictable legal consequences. If a German and an Italian company signed a deal in Euros, its not clear what that means now, especially if the deal was done under UK law, which is common. This will keep the lawyers busy for decades. \n \n(my first go at one of these)",
"**Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!**",
"As long as none of your load-bearing walls are using Euro studs, you'll be fine. ",
"Will this make the dollar stronger in the short term, even as crappy as our economy is because it's the world's reserve currency?"
]
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35yq0d | how does one way power transmission through gears work? | If input gear A applies a force to gearbox B, B applies a force to output gear C. However, if C applies a Force to B, nothing is applied to A. How does that work?
P.s. What is the name of that gear configuration? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/35yq0d/eli5_how_does_one_way_power_transmission_through/ | {
"a_id": [
"cr93bar"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"I'm not sure if there's a general term for that kind of gear setup. Some setups like what you're describing - bicycles, for example - use something called a freewheel gear. On the inside, a freewheel gear looks like [this](_URL_0_). \n\nThe blue part can spin clockwise without affecting the green part, because the red hinge just compresses. Going counterclockwise, though, the red hinge catches on the teeth and doesn't compress, so the green part will turn.\n\nSo, if you attach a freewheel gear to the rear wheel of a bike, the pedals will force the wheel to move when you pedal forwards, but nothing happens when you pedal backwards because the hinge doesn't catch the teeth.\n\nThis also means that the wheel can spin forwards without spinning the pedal. In terms of the difference between the wheel's rotation and the pedal's rotation, the pedals are spinning backwards relative to the wheel. So, letting the wheel move forwards and keeping the pedals stationary is identical to pedaling backwards, which we've established does nothing. The wheel thus can't power the pedal forwards.\n\nIn a bike, the wheel can force the pedals to move *backwards* if you push the bike backwards. The pedals can only power the wheels to go forwards, and the wheels can only power the pedals to move backwards. This is a limitation of the freewheel setup, so it doesn't behave exactly how you described. Instead of torque always going from A to B to C, torque goes only from A to B to C when moving forwards, and goes only from C to B to A when moving backwards."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/85/Roue_libre_cliquet.svg/2000px-Roue_libre_cliquet.svg.png"
]
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|
yzyql | the danger of feeding a dog
human food? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/yzyql/eli5_the_danger_of_feeding_a_dog_human_food/ | {
"a_id": [
"c60a56z"
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"text": [
"The first danger is that some human foods are lethal to dogs. For example, avocados and chocolate both contain chemicals that dogs can't handle and eating enough can kill them.\n\nSecond, the balance of nutrients that is healthy for a human is not the same as what's healthy for a dog. They could get fat because they are eating food that is too high in calories or they could be missing a vital nutrient they need to stay healthy."
]
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[]
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||
21oy09 | why does my throat feel almost painfully dry when i'm out jogging or cycling? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21oy09/eli5_why_does_my_throat_feel_almost_painfully_dry/ | {
"a_id": [
"cgf5fcw"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Your body is reacting to you slowly becoming dehydrated, a process that is accelerating when you exercise due to your body sweating in order to cool you down. If you breath in with your mouth when you exercise, you might also be experiencing dry oral tissues. "
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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||
fr45gv | what makes the touchscreens of smartphones feel different from the touchscreens of nintendo ds's/3ds's and older mobile devices ? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fr45gv/eli5_what_makes_the_touchscreens_of_smartphones/ | {
"a_id": [
"fltmvd3"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Your phone uses a capacitive touch screen which uses the capacitive properties of your finger to detect where you are interacting with the screen. \n\nResistive touch screens have a flexible surface that when flexed allows two conductive surfaces to interact\n\n\nResistive screens need to flex under pressure so they will feel different then capacitive screens which are rigid."
]
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[]
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||
32lqmt | why do period cramps get slightly less bad if you take your tampon out? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/32lqmt/eli5why_do_period_cramps_get_slightly_less_bad_if/ | {
"a_id": [
"cqcd1r9"
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"text": [
"what you are asking is why **your** cramps get less. You may well be extrapolating from your experience to others, and that's wrong. Just doing a quick poll inside my family (and getting a few raised eyebrows), that doesn't happen. \n\nIt may be that that happened to you and you expect it to happen, confirmation bias."
]
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[]
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||
sfzeg | how does 3g/4g get the internet to my phone? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/sfzeg/eli5_how_does_3g4g_get_the_internet_to_my_phone/ | {
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"I'll try my best to explain the radio wave frequency data transfer.\n\nLets say there's 3 people. Alice, Bryan and Conrad. Say Alice is your \"phone\", and Conrad is a \"cell tower\". Bryan is the \"radio wave\". The conditions are:\n\n1)Alice and Conrad are a fair distance apart.\n2)Alice and Conrad cannot move.\n3)Alice and Conrad understand both Spanish. Bryan can only speak english\n\nNow Alice needs to communicate with Conrad. But Conrad could not hear her since he is several miles away. Keep in mind that they both can't move. But Bryan can move. So Alice tell Bryan her message in English. Bryan travels to Conrad and relay the message to Conrad, which Conrad would gladly reply.\n\nBasically before your phone being transmitting, your 3G radio modulate or \"mixed\" your message into a \"carrier frequency\" and this frequency can travel greater distance to be picked up by the cell tower, the cell tower will \"demodulate\" the signal to a language it can understand. So your phone and the cell tower pretty much goes back and forth.\n\nDisclaimer: I based my understanding on 3G transmitter on how normal FM transmitter works, if they used a different technology please feel free to correct me.\n\nAlso, if you are wondering how radio frequency can transmit data, here's my explanation:\n\nYou'll need to understand binary. So 0001 means 1, 0010 means 2, etc. All frequency data is pretty much transmitting in binary.\n\n(This is dumbed down heavily)\n\nSupposed that you are standing beside a window. You can only open the window ONCE every 10 seconds to see if there's a light. If you see a light, that's a ONE, if its dark, that's a ZERO.\n\nSo, after 10 seconds, you open the window - there's no light. 10 more seconds, no light, 10 more seconds, no lights and then 10 more seconds, there's a light.\n\nNow count back, you recorded ZERO ZERO ZERO ONE. That's 0001, so the message is \"1\".\n\nIn technical terms: You need to know that frequency wave goes UP and DOWN, UP and DOWN. The modulator will read the frequency every X seconds to see if the frequency is down or low, zero or one. And this happens very very fast! Because the frequency is at several megahertz , the so gap between high and low is microseconds apart!\n",
"These people suck at explaining this.\n\nRadio is just flashing light. You can stand on a mountain with a flashlight and your friend can stand on the bottom of that mountain also with a flashlight. If you both know, say, Morse code, then you can communicate with each other just using the flashlight, right?\n\nThat's all a radio tower and your phone do, except not with the visible light spectrum. They use the radio spectrum instead - which is the exact same as visible light, it's just a different color (that color is called \"radio\" and it's invisible). But it's really just Morse code and two flashlights flashing at each other.\n\nRadio is a cool color because it can go through walls and cars and other stuff, which is why you don't always have to have a *direct* view of the radio tower.\n\nNOTE: It's not *actually* Morse code. It's binary (as mentioned below) that is made up of 1's and 0's. If you string together a bunch of 1's and 0's, you can make up your own language (like dots and dashes for Morse). This all happens so quickly that even if we could see the color radio, we wouldn't be able to tell it was flashing at all. Also, it \"flashes\" not in on-off but FM radios (frequency modulation) flash \"high frequency\" and \"low frequency.\" So it flashes between two shades of radio. AM radios (amplitude modulation) flash \"high amplitude\" and \"low amplitude\".\" So it flashes between two brightnesses of radio.\n\n**TL;DR: The tower is a flashlight, your phone is a flashlight. They flash a color at each other called \"radio\" that's invisible to us but visible to each of them and can travel through walls.**"
]
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2didz9 | what is the rules for using words "sex" and "gender" in non-human organisms (like animals and plants)? | In humans it is usually accepted (by liberals at least) that "sex" is biological when "gender" is social. So does it means the word "gender" should not be used (out of a linguistic context of course) for non-human organisms, or "sex" and "gender" can be considered synonyms in these cases? For example, is "the gender of this bird is male" a correct usage?
Also, is it true that the word "gender" is used as a euphemism/censored version of "sex"? For example in Pokemon, they are described to have male and female "gender" even if they are insects that should not have a social gender construct. Is there any real reason or just trying to avoid the word "sex"? Thanks. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2didz9/eli5_what_is_the_rules_for_using_words_sex_and/ | {
"a_id": [
"cjr060e"
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"text": [
"I think this [infographic](_URL_1_) will help you understand what I am going to try and explain (probably rather crudely).\n\n* **Gender**: a persons subjective inner experience of who they identify as. May be masculine, feminine, neither or somewhere in between. \n\n* **Sex**: As in biological sex, typically male or female but also [intersex](_URL_0_) individuals (people with physical characteristics of both sex)\n\n* **Orientation**: Who people are attracted to sexually, this can be the same sex = homosexual, the opposite sex = heterosexual, neither = asexual, or somewhere in between = pansexual, bisexual. \n\nTerms like \"masculine\" and \"feminine\" are a set of culturally driven proscriptions (what someone should not do) and prescriptions (what someone should do). In our western *two sex - two gender* system our \"masculine\" gender identity should match up with the male sex and our \"feminine\" gender identity should match up with the female sex. Any deviation from this is consider \"abnormal\". For example, a female (her biological sex) dresses more masculine (her gender expression) is considered *by and large* abnormal to western society. A male (his biological sex) who takes care of his kids and is a stay at home dad (his gender expression) is considered *by and large* abnormal to western society.\n\nWhat defines masculine and feminine changes through time and from culture to culture. For example in North America men are expected to be: strong, athletic, handsome, breadwinners, unemotional, assertive, and dominant. Women are expected to be: passive, beautiful, youthful, mothering, nurturing, and emotional. But in other cultures different cultural proscriptions and prescriptions exist. These are often learned behaviours and expressions of ourselves that are by and large dictated by our peer-group and culture. If we all woke up tomorrow and men were the ones who were culturally prescribed to wear dresses and make up, and women suits and ties we wouldn't bat an eye. There isn't anything inherit or biological that makes women wear dresses or makeup more than men except that it is culturally prescribed that women do so. Same goes for \"alternative\" gender expressions - ones where the gender expression does not match the sex, or the sexual orientation of the person.\n\nSo where does homosexuality or heterosexuality come into play with gender expression? Not a whole lot. Homosexuality and heterosexuality only indicate who a person is sexually attracted to. It does not indicate how they feel about themselves subjectively (their gender identity and gender expression are separate from their sexual orientation). A homosexual female may have a more feminine gender expression, or a homosexual female may have a more masculine gender expression. We need to separate the way people look, and behave with their sexual orientation. \n\n**Gender is who you go to bed as, orientation is who you go to bed with, and biological sex is the equipment you use.**\n\nAs for other animals/plants/fungi - scientists use the term \"sex\" or \"biological sex\" to describe their respective versions of male and female. We don't really think of other species as having genders, remember that gender is often constructed in the context of a culture. And while other animal species do have cultures (e.g. chimpanzees, elephants, corvids, bonobos, capuchins) and they do have theory-of-mind (i.e. the ability to distinguish self from other) we do not have the means to understand how they subjectively identify themselves within the group."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex",
"http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/1600-Genderbread-Person.jpg"
]
] |
|
2u4zzu | 10% of an iceberg is above water. | Weight? Mass? Volume? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2u4zzu/eli5_10_of_an_iceberg_is_above_water/ | {
"a_id": [
"co55s66"
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"text": [
"Displacement and buoyancy. When an object floats, it displaces an amount of water equal to it's own mass. So, if you have a piece of wood that weighs 100 lbs, it will sink until the part of it below water has \"pushed aside\" 100lbs of water.\n\nIce is only slightly less dense than water, so an Ice-berg sinks 90% of the way in before it has displaced it's own weight in water. Roughly, anyway, I'm sure to 90/10% number is approximate. But roughly 90% of an iceberg is below water, and 10% above."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
2ohu6f | do download tests show how fast your actually downloading? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2ohu6f/eli5do_download_tests_show_how_fast_your_actually/ | {
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"text": [
"Download speed tests work by downloading a big file from a fast nearby server, and measuring how fast it's downloading. So yes.\n\nHowever, there are factors that can limit your download speed that the download test will not show.\n\nAlso, I've heard rumours that ISPs will prioritize traffic that looks like it's from a speed test - so your speed test goes faster than your normal speed. This is technically possible. I have no idea whether any ISPs do it."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
d572fa | how are companies such as spectrum not considered a monopoly? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/d572fa/eli5_how_are_companies_such_as_spectrum_not/ | {
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"text": [
"So many reasons. But even if they were a monopoly, a monopoly isn't necessarily illegal.\n\nFirst, Spectrum has a lot of competition: Time Warner, XFinity, Cox, and so on. However, generally you don't get to choose different cable providers. Your city will have granted a monopoly to one of those companies, and if you want cable it will have to be from the selected company. Typically these deals last a limited number of years.\n\nBut you don't have to get cable. If all you want is TV, there's also Dish. If you're interested in high speed Internet, there may be FIOS. And so on . \n\nBut it isn't illegal to be a monopoly. It is illegal to use your position as a monopoly to extend your business in other areas."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
3dwqid | how do pinhole cameras work? | I have one right here, and I'm convinced there must be elves in there or something.... | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3dwqid/eli5_how_do_pinhole_cameras_work/ | {
"a_id": [
"ct9d9ao"
],
"score": [
2
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"text": [
"If you can imagine the camera in the shape of an hourglass, with the pinhole being the center of the hourglass, it's a lot easier to visualize. You can think of light rays traveling in a straight line, and every light ray that passes through the pinhole gets projected onto a surface, only it's in the opposite position with respect to the pinhole. Since all of the light rays do this, an image appears on the surface, but flipped upside down."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
396193 | what does it mean in layman's terms for the birth control nexplanon to be 99.9% effective? | I have trouble wrapping my head around how they came up with that statistic. Can someone please explain it to me? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/396193/eli5_what_does_it_mean_in_laymans_terms_for_the/ | {
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"text": [
"The usual meaning of a percent number associated with a birth control method is that it gives you the odds of a person who correctly uses the method for a year will avoid pregnancy. \n\nSo, in this case, if you gave 1,000 people Nexplanon and they used it right, at the end of a year you'd expect that 1 or fewer of that thousand would be (or would have gotten) pregnant. ",
"If means that 0.1% of the people on Nexplanon became pregnant. It's not necessarily a 1 in 1,000 chance it will fail; there could be physiological factors, or interactions with other medications, that reduce the effectiveness for some people. ",
"It is a get out clause just in case a pregnancy happens. They can't say 100% as that way lies lawyers "
]
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[],
[],
[]
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|
4c4yxx | how does glass absorb uv radiation. why can't quartz glass absorb uv radiation? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4c4yxx/eli5_how_does_glass_absorb_uv_radiation_why_cant/ | {
"a_id": [
"d1f6s8t"
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"text": [
"Glass scientist here. Silica glass actually does allow 99%+ UV light to transmit down to about 160nm, which is well into the UV part of the spectrum. In order for it to do this though the glass has to be very, very pure.\n\nIn most glass that you and I come across on a daily basis there is a large amount of impurity ions, most notably sodium (soda is used to reduce the \"melting\" temperature of silica so that it's cheaper to manufacture). Other ions present include iron (that's how you get the blueish-green color in old Coca Cola bottles or coffee tables) and maybe a little copper. It's these ions that are responsible for absorbing UV light.\n\nSome commercial glass, especially for windows, might also be treated with materials or layers specifically designed for UV absorption."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
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7ixrm0 | why did new york city experience a huge dramatic drop in crime rate in recent decades, while other cities like st. louis, gary, new orleans have stubbornly high crime rates? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ixrm0/eli5why_did_new_york_city_experience_a_huge/ | {
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"Most cities have experienced a huge dramatic drop in crime rates in recent decades. Only a few have not dropped **as much** as others.\n\nThe cause is unknown - it can't be policing, because the crime rate is dropping all over the world, even in places that don't police like we do. There's a suggestion that it might be the removal of leaded gasoline and paint - apparently even small lead exposure in childhood generates adults who will likely commit a crime.\n\nAs for why a few have not dropped *as much* - probably cultural or poverty related.",
"The biggest factor is because New York was able to maintain a stable economy and provide a lot of jobs.\n\nThose other cities have had shrinking economies, those who were able left, leaving a disproportionate amount of poor unskilled workers because. This shrank the tax base, making it more difficult for those cities to provide police and other government services.\n\nAlso, New Orleans was hit by a massive hurricane and a botched relief effort, accelerating the exodus of skilled, middle-class workers."
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dbv4dd | ftl travel | I've come across various instances of theories for faster-than-light travel talking about moving space around an object, rather than pushing an object through space.
I really don't get it at all. ELI5? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/dbv4dd/eli5_ftl_travel/ | {
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"We know that in our universe, an object can't move through space faster than c (the speed of light). So the thought is, could we squish space instead. No one has a practical way to do it, as of yet.",
"You are probably talking about Alcubierre Metric or Alcubierre Drive, it's a mathematical model that in theory work within Einstein theory. By contracting spacetime infront of your ship and expanding space behind your ship it's like riding a wave, but it's a wave of spacetime. The math work with Einstein equation, but that doesn't mean that it's physically make sense and Einstein equation are incomplete, we don't have a unified theory of everything yet, relatively work on large scale, while Quantum Mechanic work on really small scale. Another problem is that even if that would be possible in reality, we would need negative mass to achieve the contraction of spacetime and we don't know if something like that even exist."
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6sdd5w | what is the difference between weeds and other plants? do they negatively affect the growth of other plants somehow, or is it a matter of aesthetics? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6sdd5w/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_weeds_and/ | {
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"Weeds are \"intrusive.\" They multiply indiscriminately, grow quickly, can grow in poor conditions, and rob the soil of nutrients at a rate that can kill neighboring plants.\n\nDandelions and marijuana are both arguably pleasant, depending on who's asking, but both are classified as weeds.",
"Both. Weeds use nutrients that desired plants (vegetables, flowers) could be using. And if a weed is faster growing, then the desired plant doesn't get the nutrients it needs.",
"The term \"weed\" is basically just applied to any plant you don't want in a particular environment (usually because you're trying to grow something else). Unwanted plants either consume resources that you'd generally want reserved for your intended plants or you don't want them there by choice (like non-flowering plants in a flower garden).",
"A weed is any plant growing somewhere you don't won't it to be. It's primarily aesthetics. What we consider weeds are typically fast growing invasive plants. If you are trying to grow grass, which is nice, soft, pretty, and relatively uniform then many fast growing plants become a problem. They may be ugly or hard to walk on, or grow too fast, etc. It's a personal choice. ",
"\"Weed\" isn't a specific category of plants. It is simply a plant that is not wanted in a particular situation. Plants that are not weeds in some circumstances may be weeds in others. As an example, grass in a flower bed vs grass in a yard.\n\nReasons they are considered weeds can be aesthetics and/or competition, as you note. Often plants we refer to as weeds are hardy and fast growing, making them more of a nuisance. \n\n",
"A weed is a plant that for some reason or another we don't want growing in a particular place. Weeds are often tougher than other plants and as such they can grow well which may make it tougher for other plants to succeed.\n\nSome weeds are \"noxious weeds\" or \"invasive weeds\" if in a farmer's field some are serious because they will make livestock sick or even kill them. They will lower the value of the crop greatly. Some invasive weeds destroy natural areas by taking over and actually killing the native plants that perhaps some animals depend on for food or nesting.\n\nInterestingly enough the weed we know as dandelions are edible.. some particular species were introduced as a formerly valuable food crop. Livestock loves them. People have been told to hate them just so companies can sell more weed poison but there is actually nothing bad about them."
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8b5mqx | why do people with traumatic injuries often die from shock rather than from their injuries? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8b5mqx/eli5_why_do_people_with_traumatic_injuries_often/ | {
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"I've asked this question, and it is about language. People don't die from shock as in \"surprise\"\n\n In medicine, shock refers to a failure of the circulatory system, and lack of blood supply to vital organs.",
"When people get bad boo-boos their body tries to make-up for the injury. There are 3 major types of shock, a problem with the pump (heart), a problem with the container (body) and a problem with the vessels (blood). Due to these problems the body/organs don’t receive enough oxygen. The tiny cells in your body begin to die and when too many of them die so do you. So really your injuries cause the shock so it still is your injuries killing you. ",
"Shock doesnt mean you feel shocked emotionally. In the medical sense, shock means that your organs aren’t getting enough oxygen. If your brain doesn’t get enough oxygen, you die. \n\nThere are four main types of shock:\n\n- Hypovolemic ie low blood volume often due to blood loss - this causes low blood pressure and not enough blood getting to important places)\n\n- cardiogenic - ie when your heart goes fucky and it can’t pump hard enough to produce a high enough blood pressure to supply blood to your body bits properly \n\n- obstructive - when something physically stops blood from exiting the heart properly \n\n- distributive - when the small blood vessels in your body dilate, so most of your blood stays there, causing a big drop in blood pressure (eg septic shock or anaphylactic shock).\n\nHope that helps! ",
"the traumamatic injury does cause the shock that \"leads\" to death. Shock is the lack of perfusion (oxygen and vital substances) in this cause caused by trauma (wounds). trauma insults cells, tissues and organs, these injuries/wounds results in shock to cells, tissues and organs. Technically cardio respiratory arrest kills a person, in your trauma case, the injury, resultant shock and further MODS/SIRS/TIC (flash terminology for your body shutting down and being overwhelmed) kills. To respond to your statement, traumatic injuries do kill people from the overwhelmimg injuries and sequalea that the person can not overcome. \n",
"Almost everybody dies from shock technically. \n\nMight be due to loss of blood or air or whatnot but in the end it’s technically shock that kills them. \n\nSo yeah they got the wound but the wound causes massive blood loss leading to hypovolemic shock. Dig? So shock is the cause of death. Not the wound cuz if a doc had patched everything perfectly fast enough then person wound’t have died. \n\n",
"The literal definition of shock I was taught was, \"cellular hypoxia, dysfunction, and death as a result of inadequate tissue perfusion.\"\n\nYour cells die as a result of insufficient oxygenation from whichever type of shock is causing it",
"Dying of shock means dying from parts of your body not getting enough oxygen. If you died of shock after an injury, it means that the injury damaged your body's ability to move oxygen around.\n\nThis means that you *did* die from your injury, \"shock\" is just a more exact way of describing *why* you died from your injury.\n\nIt is a lot like what happens if you died from having your leg cut off. You might say that you \"bled to death\", since you can live without a leg, but clearly it was getting your leg cut off that killed you.\n\nAs a matter of fact, when you \"bleed to death\", shock is usually what actually killed you. You need blood to move oxygen around. If your blood leaks out, you can't move oxygen around, and you die of shock.",
"Every person will die from shock. Shock is just another way of saying that for whatever reason, tissue is no longer receiving sufficient blood throughout the body. There are several types of shock. In traumas hypovolemic shock is probably the most common type of shock. The patient either A. Loses so much blood or B. Suffers a spinal injury causing systemic vasodilation, that drops their blood pressure to the point where perfusion is impaired and tissues die. ",
"This is a difficult ELI5, but I’ll try.\n\n“Shock” is your body failing to circulate enough blood to ensure all your cells get the oxygen and glucose they need, and their waste gets offloaded and excreted. There are many different types of shock.\n\nSo, people die from “shock” because their brains and hearts aren’t getting the necessary oxygen and glucose.\n\nMost types of shock, and the one you’re thinking of most likely, occurs from traumatic injuries like lacerations, explosions or amputations. These cause lots of blood loss. To COMPENSATE (key term), your body clamps down on blood vessels, making sure the VIPs (heart, brain) get their requirements.\n\nEventually your body DECOMPENSATES (key term), and it cannot keep clamping those blood vessels (or you just lost too much blood, or a host of other reasons).\n\n ",
"Typically those with traumatic injuries die from Hypovolemic Shock... that is, you bleed out, and because there's not enough blood in your vessels, therefore your body cannot get oxygen like it needs to.",
"According to the EMTs that picked me up from a motorcycle wreck \n\nShock is also a self defense mechanism \nYour reptile brain says “oh this idiot is causing massive bodily harm to its self, I’m going to shut down so he stops hurting himself ”\n\nOr something like that.. \nthus a loss of blood pressure \nMakeing you faint and dizzy \nAnd down you go.. and according to the reptile brain. No more “quit hitting yourself, quit hitting yourself “\n\nThey also told me.. “when the state troopers arrive tell them a deer jumped in front of you”.. that will save you a wreckless driving ticket\n\nThey were stand up EMTs.. \n10/10 would use them again ",
"Hearing the use of the term shock in popular media and movies regularly bothered me since I became a physician. However recently I’ve decided that we should simply let go of term shock from the medical lexicon. The term itself is very old and is not descriptive. It simply serves as a marker for a constellation of physiologic findings in a specific type of patient. Mostly I feel the term simply serves to confuse a layperson or family when a patient is extremely sick or injured. Let the entertainment industry keep their emotional shock trope. I propose an alternative term to replace shock. Let’s have some suggestions. I’ll start: Sink. ”A 25-year-old male with history of intravenous drug use presents with a fever of 105, heart rate of 120 and a blood pressure of 75/40. We feel he is likely in septic sink.”",
"My great great grandma was hit by a trolley and died. On her death cert it says cause of death was shock from broken clavicle...I always thought that was odd...wonder what type of shock it was. ",
"I want to ask a question regarding people who die from burning alive... there was an accident outside my town where 3 people burned to death inside their vehicle. I asked my mom's boyfriend's sister (a daycare nurse) that burning is a way I do NOT want to die. She said I would die of shock first.. what does that mean? Is it the same as say, falling from a Plane? If it's a silly question I apologize ",
"People have pretty much covered most of the important stuff such as controlling bleeding, temperature, clotting factors, but ph balance is also an important consideration in trauma. \n\nWithout getting into the weeds about it, lactate is very important to metabolic function and helps your body when its stressed (or in shock) to help with the compensatory mechanisms.\n\nIf the lactate levels get too high in your body they can affect metabolic processes which has been correlated with bad patient outcomes. There are some medications that can be given to help normalize the ph balance in your body, as well as some equipment to help your lungs blow off more C02 (which in the body forms an acid as well). \n\nThere is something called the Trauma Triad and it's three points are coagulopathy, hypothermia, and acidosis. \n\n\n",
"It can also be your mitochondria. It's not only the lack of oxygen that kill you, but also your own immune system. \n\nWhen you suffer extensive injuries, the cells of the area affected are \"dying\" and release their content into your extracellular environment. One of the organelles released are the mitochondria, who act like a bacteria.\nBasically your immune system is not used to encounter loose mitochondria, and because they act like prokaryotic cells like bacteria, they are targeted as a threat. If you suffer major injuries, you will have a LOT of mitonchondria lying around, which means that you have a overactivation of your immune system (very similar to sepsis). \nThere is usually nothing a doctor can do and you will be dead in hours if not faster. \n\nThis article is very helpful to understand this phenomenon: _URL_0_\n",
"Forgive my ignorance here, but can’t people who have also seen significant trauma also go into shock after seeing the event? Just curious. ",
"Just to add to this point to help give more context regarding the question itself; in trauma there are several high risk conditions that can result which cause these types of shock. There are some conditions that cause cardiac arrest that are considered the “reversible causes of cardiac arrest”. In Medicine they are referred to the H’s and T’s and some of these create shock states. I will list them now. \n\nTension pneumothorax- air in the pleural space (lungs for simplicity’s sake). If enough air gets trapped in the space, it creates a pressure gradient in the thorax that blood flow has to fight against when returning to the heart. This can also occur if blood and not air builds up in that pleural space, called a hemo(blood) pneumothorax. These are classified as a type of obstructive shock.\n\nCardiac Tamponade - say you smash your chest against a steering wheel in a car accident, the result can be irritation or trauma to the pericardial sac. This results in either blood or serous fluid being trapped around the heart in that confined space, the result is the heart can’t beat against the pressure being exerted on it externally. This is also a type of obstructive shock. \n\nPulmonary thrombosis - big blood clot in the lung that essentially prevents diffusion of oxygen across the alveolar membrane, see V/Q mismatch. The result is less oxygenated blood to the tissues, by definition creating shock. I guess this would be considered obstructive but this is more medically relevant than trauma. \n\nCoronary thrombosis - blood clot in the vessels of the heart. A heart attack basically. The result as myocardium dies can be dysthymias which make the heart pump ineffectively. This is cardiogenic shock. \n\nToxins ... not related to trauma. It can cause heart and blood vessel problems creating cardiogenic or distributive shock. \n\nTrauma used to be included as it’s own “T”, but I think no longer as it essentially is covered by other types. \n\nHypovolemia - not enough blood. You can hold free blood outside of the vessels it is supposed to be in. You. An loose up to 3 litres in a pelvis, 1.5 litres per femur, entire blood capacity in the retroperitoneal space, etc. This is your hypovolemic shock. \n\nHypoxia - not enough oxygen for whatever reason. Again not necessarily related to trauma but by definition prevents adequate distribution of oxygenated blood to the tissues. \n\nH+ (Acidosis) - more of a secondary state from some of the previously mentioned items, not necessarily related to shock but usually is in some sense. Trauma not necessary. \n\nHyper/hypokalemia - see above. This is too much or not enough potassium. Can lead to heart dysthymia and blood vessel problems potentially creating cardiogenic and/or distributive shock. Not related to trauma. \n\nHypothermia - set explanatory.. can cause cardiac dysthymia and blood vessel dilation creating cardiogenic and/or distributive shock state. \n\nHope that helps a bit. ",
"People who die form taumatic injuries usually suffer the \"The Triad of Death\" this being hypothermia which is rapid loss of body heat, acidosis which is when the pH of blood is lowered., and Coagulopathy a codition where you are unable to form blood clots. \nThese three are work together to cause rapid blood loss, and with out the volume necessary the heart is unable to pump leading to death. \nThis is why it is important for trauma patients to be kept warm, having sources of blood loss stopped, and return volume back with Normal saline or other products until they can get blood. "
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qyxye | why do so many hetero females peruse /r/gonewild? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/qyxye/eli5_why_do_so_many_hetero_females_peruse/ | {
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"Comparing themselves to the competition, posting their own pictures, offering moral support to other posters in the community, checking out the naked guys, getting a thrill from going someplace slightly forbidden, and enjoying the (I assume) positive attention. \n\nI realize that's an older than 5 explanation, but you wouldn't be allowed near r/gonewild if you were 5. ",
"In my case, it's the dudes. That's it. Just dudes."
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2vl6oa | is the price of a company's stock a direct representation of its total value? for example when google has a share value of $500 is that because the company itself is valuable or just because it has a fewer amount of shares? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2vl6oa/eli5_is_the_price_of_a_companys_stock_a_direct/ | {
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"Fewer amount of shares. A company's value (using your description) is the stock price multiplied by the number of shares. When the stock prices gets too high it becomes unwieldly and the shares are split (e.g. someone who owns a single 500 share gets two shares of 250).",
"First, we must understand that value is a wholly subjective concept. A company does not have a true value; its value is whatever someone is willing to pay for it. \n\nSecond, there are several ways to represent value. Stock price is not a good one, because it is very dependant on the number of shares available. That is why when some people are determining the \"value\" of a publicly traded company, they look at Market Capitalization, which is simply (share price) x (# of shares). This is a simple metric for comparing two companies.\n\nNote, however, that when you are buying and selling stock the value of the company is only one thing you actually are concerned with. Apple's market cap is more that $700 billion, while Google's is about $360 billion. What does that tell you about where the price per share will go? Not much at all."
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774d06 | can someone break down to me the costs of making/running a website | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/774d06/eli5_can_someone_break_down_to_me_the_costs_of/ | {
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"Well you need someone to create and maintain the website (usually known as the Webmaster), also you need to buy the equipment to host it yourself and have a good fast internet connection, or pay a website hosting company to use their equipment to have them host it for you. Depending on the size and complexity of your site and the amount of traffic, this can get very expensive very quickly.",
"The people who own the site pay for their site... obviously. \nDon't overthink this.\n\nIts up to them if they want to try to make money from the site, be it from ads, donations, subscriptions or whatever. They may choose not to monetize their site in anyway. It's their choice. But it doesn't stop them from having to pay to keep it up\n\nIts just like running a physical store, you set it up, and pay your bills to keep it open. If you're selling something in your store, thats nice, because you can try to make back some of the money it takes to keep the store open. \n",
"There are 3 main things you need to worry about excluding people who make/maintain the site itself, Internet, Domain name, and hardware. A website needs these 3 things in order to work. \n\n1)The hardware: You need to either buy a server(which is too complicated to really get into, but its basically a specialized computer, though you could sometimes get away with using your own desktop in specific cases) and then maintain it like you would any computer, or you rent the hardware. When you rent, you usually buy a bundle of some cpu cores, ram, and disk space, and depending on the software, a licencing fee. This is the main expense usually.\n\n2)Internet: If your server is in house, you have to directly pay for it like you normally would, but if you rent the hardware, you probably will also have to pay for the traffic to and from the server. A lot of places charge you per gigabyte of traffic or so, though its usually pretty cheap, it adds up for larger sites. \n\n3)Domain name: This is usually the cheapest. You have to own or rent the name in the URL bar. Some are really expensive, but others are pretty cheap, a couple bucks per month or so. Some places let you hitch off theirs, so they are free, but your url will have their url tacked onto it, like weebly or appengine. \n\nAnd all of that is just the raw website itself, and does not include whoever is actually making and maintaining the website. They are pretty expensive per hour for a good one. \n\nAll in all, even a moderately popular site could cost you hundreds per month, though the price will vary significantly based on the site itself. \n",
"Let's start from the bottom:\n\nTo be able to host a website, you need a website to host. User expectations are high nowadays, so unless you already are a professional webdesigner, you probably need to hire somebody. The median wage for web designers is 35$ an hour according to a quick google search. Let's say the designer needs an initial 40 hours to build the website and then another 4-8 hours, whenever incremental changes need to be made. Thats 1400$ and 140-280$ respectively.\n\nNow that you have a website, you still need to make it available to the people on the internet, otherwise, why have a website? There are 2 ways you can go for this:\n\n- Either buy the hosting hardware yourself, get the hardware you bought connected to a business internet access plan (private probably won't support all the incoming connections) with a static IP and pay for a DNS-Name so that your customers/readers/viewers can type \"_URL_0_\" instead of \"127.0.0.1\" in the address bar of their browser. This is probably going to be far to much work and far to expensive for most people, with 300$ - 500$ if you want a server that can handle a decent amount of traffic (users connecting to your site), double, tripple or quadruple that if you want redundancy (1 server dies, users can still connect) + you would have to build all that redundancy. I don't know about American Internet Access prices, but for business access + static IP + DNS you can probably count on 100$-200$ a month. \nSolution 1: 300$-500$ initial + 100$-200$ a month.\n\n- Solution 2: You pay someone else to host your website for you (e.g. Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, < insert local cloud/hosting provider here > ). Prices may vary and depend on the features you want. Redundancy and up-time guarantee cost extra, and the more traffic your site gets the more you need to pay. Very small websites may get away with 5$ a month, but that can change quickly.\n\nAnd there is a third way altogether depending on what you want to do: If you just want to have a simple website you could use SquareSpace or a similiar service. There you have a website building tool that may not allow websites as fancy as a professionally built website, but it'll get the job done for your family pictures. Their cheapest pricing plan is 132$ a year.\n\nSorry for the wall of text, that's probably not ELI5 anymore but now it's already written and discarding it would feel bad."
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1ppiyc | what's the difference between stand-your-ground and self defense? | This came up recently in another thread and I was looking for a good explanation. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1ppiyc/eli5_whats_the_difference_between_standyourground/ | {
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"Under traditional self-defense, you can use lethal force to defend youself from death or serious bodily harm *only if* you can't retreat from the situation. This is known as the \"duty to retreat.\"\n\nThere are some instances where there is no duty to retreat. Most commonly, there's no duty to retreat in your home, so you can use lethal force to defend yourself (again, against a threat of death or serious bodily harm) even if you could run out the back door. This is commonly called the \"castle doctrine.\"\n\nStand your ground laws effectively eliminate the duty to retreat in public places. \n\nThat said, these are all somewhat nuanced concepts, which vary from state to state, and which don't exist in every state.",
"It should be noted that despite how \"stand your ground\" became synonymous with the case in Florida, in the end Zimmerman actually used traditional self defense (I was attacked and unable to retreat), as opposed to stand your ground (I could have retreated but did not have an obligation to). \n\nIn some states with traditional self defense you have a duty to retreat even in your own home if you can do so, Castle Doctrine / Stand your Ground means you don't have to, and unless you shoot the guy in the back while he's running out your door you'll probably win in court. It's kind of muddy because the law in every state is slightly different- in Texas you're even allowed to use lethal force expressly to defend your personal property, in other states courts have established precedent by what they do or do not do; Minnesota does not have Castle Doctrine de jure, but there has never in recent history been a prosecution involving a person shooting an obvious intruder just enough to eliminate the threat whether or not they could have theoretically retreated. "
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bhxkbu | why do drugs like mdma not work while on ssris? | I’ve been on fluoxetine and quatiapine for several years now and have recently started experimenting with drugs yet I feel no effect, no matter how much I take or mix (weed, MDMA, cocaine and speed, which I know I shouldn’t mix I just really wanted to feel a high but didn’t). I’ve googled why but I’m confused by the explanation | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/bhxkbu/eli5_why_do_drugs_like_mdma_not_work_while_on/ | {
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"Careful, the interaction of these can also cause serotonin syndrome, which is where there’s too much serotonin accumulating in places there shouldn’t be too much of it and it is really dangerous, at BEST you will feel like absolute shit for a few days and wanna die, at worst you could die.\n\nUnless you’re super sensitive taking one cap shouldn’t do it, but don’t take more and more to try and get high because that’s how it happens"
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3x67sw | how does international postage work since each country has their own postal system? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3x67sw/eli5_how_does_international_postage_work_since/ | {
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"The countries in the Universal Postal Union have agreed on common standards. If I pay the proper international postage rate in the United States, then any postal service will deliver to the proper address in their country after receiving the letter from the U.S. Postal Service, regardless of the local postage rates. Similarly, someone from abroad is not affected when sending a letter to America if U.S. postage rates go up.\n\nThe only trick is the proper addressing, since that does vary wildly by country. But you can find the recommended addressing scheme for each country on the Internet.",
"In Denmark it's cheaper to send mail from Germany to Denmark. So some people actually bring mail across the border. To send it back. ",
"When shipping a large item from USA to regional Queensland, Australia it cost US$20 to ship from northeast USA to Sydney, and AU$320 to ship it from there to me."
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1bs8m5 | why are multi-stage rockets better than single-stage ones? | I've always wondered. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1bs8m5/eli5_why_are_multistage_rockets_better_than/ | {
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"The amount of fuel you have to burn to lift a rocket depends on its mass. So by throwing off parts of the rocket when they're not needed anymore, you can decrease its fuel needs.",
"If you're referring to what I think you're referring to by saying multi-stage rockets then. The earths gravity gets stronger the closer you are to the surface so more thrust is needed to get off the ground than it is to fly around in low orbit. Therefore extra engines, fuel tanks and thrusters are attached to get off the ground and higher into the atmosphere, once they're no longer needed or are out of fuel they get jettisoned rather than staying on to make the craft lighter. There are other reasons like for the now decommissioned shuttles docking with the extra fuel canisters and rockets it uses to get into orbit would have been harder than it already is. \n\nI'm sure someone far smarter than me will list of the formulas for rocket science and give far detailed/better reasons than me but until then.",
"Read [this NASA article](_URL_0_) and marvel that we can get anything into space at all."
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mbrbq | pre-nups, divorce settlements | I seem to always run across stories where a stay-at-home mom who has never worked a day in her life ended up taking half of everything that a hard-working (and not necessarily unfaithful) husband earned, including the house and kids (hard to take half a kid).
How do things like this happen? If you get married without a pre-nup, does that automatically entitle your spouse to half of what you own?
ELI5, please! | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/mbrbq/eli5_prenups_divorce_settlements/ | {
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"In most states, the courts recognize that if one partner works and the other partner is a stay-at-home parent/spouse, then the income of the working partner is considered to be the total \"family\" income.\n\nThe logic is that in a marriage, the non-working spouse is contributing her/his time to the family, while the other one contributes his/her time working, but both are equally involved in contributing, so the total family income must be divided evenly. \n\nFor example, if mom stays home to take care of kids, that's considered a job, although without income. The dad would not be able to work at all, if the mom didn't stay home with the kids. So dad's income is considered as the income of the whole family, half of which belongs to the other adult, in this case the wife. ",
"My ex-girlfriend thought I was a bad boyfriend, but what really pissed me off was that I brought in all the income and she never even took care of the house while I was at work. \n\n\nI know it's a side story, but back to the related question. The husband and wife would split everything equally assuming that they both agree on everything in court. The reason behind this is that marriage is like a legal-binding contract basically stating you and your spouse are one entity.",
"In most states, the courts recognize that if one partner works and the other partner is a stay-at-home parent/spouse, then the income of the working partner is considered to be the total \"family\" income.\n\nThe logic is that in a marriage, the non-working spouse is contributing her/his time to the family, while the other one contributes his/her time working, but both are equally involved in contributing, so the total family income must be divided evenly. \n\nFor example, if mom stays home to take care of kids, that's considered a job, although without income. The dad would not be able to work at all, if the mom didn't stay home with the kids. So dad's income is considered as the income of the whole family, half of which belongs to the other adult, in this case the wife. ",
"My ex-girlfriend thought I was a bad boyfriend, but what really pissed me off was that I brought in all the income and she never even took care of the house while I was at work. \n\n\nI know it's a side story, but back to the related question. The husband and wife would split everything equally assuming that they both agree on everything in court. The reason behind this is that marriage is like a legal-binding contract basically stating you and your spouse are one entity."
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axtseo | how have we discovered many exoplanets but not the hypothesized planet x in our own solar system? | Edit: Thank you all for the great replies | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/axtseo/eli5how_have_we_discovered_many_exoplanets_but/ | {
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"Because the current methods we have for [discovering exoplanets](_URL_0_) are based on the wobble of the star they orbit, or on partially obscuring the star as they pass in front of it, or on the shine from the star on the planet surface. So basically we still need to see a very bright object in the telescope.\n\nPlanet X is so far away from the Sun that (if it exists) it's very very dark, and thus hard to see.",
"Think of a marbel in a field at night, you know it is somewhere on the field but you just cannot make it out. Now imagine it's moving.\n\nOn the other hand, imagine a street light with a fly buzzing around it. You cannot see the fly but if you look at the light long enough you can just make out something changing in the light on a regular basis, a slight flickering where the light is usually steady."
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z0wc1 | what's wrong with performance enhancing drugs? why can't we all use them to be better? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/z0wc1/whats_wrong_with_performance_enhancing_drugs_why/ | {
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"Well, many of them have very real negative side effects. Look at [this page](_URL_0_) for a long list of bad things that can happen from anabolic steroid use.\n\nThe reason they're banned in competitive sports is that they have made a decision that they want to test how well an athlete can perform simply with their own skills, without the aid of drugs.",
"check out Bigger Faster Stronger. it's a really good documentary about this",
"* many have very serious side effects and long term consequences\n* sports should be about who is the best athlete, not who has the best pharmacist\n* ordinary people don't need to shave 0.1s off of their 100m time\n\nThe British Journal of Sports Medicine surveyed elite athletes, asking if there was a pill that guaranteed them a gold medal, but they would die 5 years later, would they take it. Over 50% said yes.\n\nYou might say risking their life and health to win is their choice, but for every champion, there are 100 athletes to tried just as hard and didn't make it. If they have to take drugs just to keep up, that's a lot of people getting sick without anything to show for it. ",
"If performance enhancing drugs are legitimized, the sport would no longer be about who's the best athlete. It'd be about who can handle the most drugs in their system without dying."
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xwzl3 | why do conservatives seem to dominate the radio? | We have a local station here on Cape Cod named WXTK(95.1) and it's just about the only talk radio station on FM, and its dominated by conservatives, rush limbaugh, laura ingraham, sean hannity, the only one I like is Howie Carr. I was just wondering why there are no real liberal talk shows on the radio, maybe its just my area but I figured I'd ask. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/xwzl3/eli5_why_do_conservatives_seem_to_dominate_the/ | {
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"It's pretty simple really, aside from music stations in traffic the main demographic which listens to (talk) radio is seniors. This same demographic tends to vote conservatively and wishes to hear conservative opinions. \n\nThus its a demand for the service, and people who wish to reach the demographic seek that out.",
"The pattern you've noticed is true across the country, not just on Cape Cod. From a [recent CAP report](_URL_0_): \"Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive...\nA separate analysis of all of the news/talk stations in the top 10 radio markets reveals that 76 percent of the programming in these markets is conservative and 24 percent is progressive...\"\n\nAs for the reason, I'm inclined to agree with fotorobot: conservatives tend to enjoy hearing angry rants by people who agree with them; liberals don't. Liberals would rather listen to a superficially \"objective\" news report and then apply our own bias to it; it helps us maintain our holier-than-thou self-image. So instead of opinion-based \"talk radio\" like Hannity, we listen to news, i.e. NPR. Of course, NPR can be pretty biased sometimes as well, but overall it makes an effort to be objective and remain \"news\" rather than \"talk\" radio.\n\nI'd bet Cape Cod has about as many NPR listeners as conservative-talk listeners -- that's certainly true in my suburb west of Boston.",
"Commercialy operated radio is owned by one of 5 media companies. [Here is a slightly dated article.](_URL_0_) It's dated because there was a merge between two companies.\n\nEverything we hear is conservative because these are companies owned and ran by conservatives, and it all comes from one of 5 sources."
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|
3ccoo9 | why does it seem you either believe in creationism or evolution? | When I hear people talk about these, usually evolution, it seems like you can't possibly believe in creationism and evolution. It's a one or the other. I realize one is science and one is religious but people talk about them together a lot. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3ccoo9/eli5_why_does_it_seem_you_either_believe_in/ | {
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"The word Creationism was coined by Charles Darwin as counter to evolution. Plenty of people believe in between the two, where they believe God initiated evolution or guided it and that he still created the universe.\n\nSo while plenty of people differ in their belief of God's role in evolution, or how far evolution goes back, or whatever doesn't matter. The world creationism specifically refers to God creating humans how they are today originally, which is incompatible with evolution.\n\n",
"Because evolutionary processes are a matter of scientific fact. It's been observed in the lab, in the field, and we have 4.5 billion years of fossil history that support it. Not a single piece of biological research in 150 years has contradicted it.\n\nCreationism (particularly Young Earth variants) specifically denies evolution. The reason you hear the two discussed together is that the only people who deny evolution are creationists, and they do it by ignoring the science and relying on literal interpretations of ancient cultural texts.\n\nThe reason that it garners so much press is because creationists are particularly agressive in trying to defend their believfs, starting up things like creationist 'museums', and trying to get creationism taught alongside evolution in science classes and text books. This gets lots of press because anyone with any kind of scientific understanding puts this on a par with trying to claim that all the wine in the world is made by Jesus rather than fermentation.\n\nIt's worth noting that literal and young earth creationism is a relatively new turn up in Christianity, and peculiarly American.",
" > It's a one or the other.\n\nAs they are commonly described they tend to directly conflict. Creationism usually implies that animals began to exist in the same form, or near the same form, they have today. Evolution typically involves a single common ancestor from which all animals today ultimately evolved into the numerous forms that exist. \n\nThe two typically come up because one is a popular Christian concept, and the other is the leading scientific theory, and Christianity is the dominant religion in several cultures like the US.",
"As far as I am aware, there are no competing hypotheses to the origin of species. Either they were created as they are now, or they became this way naturally over time. I can't see how one could deny both theories.",
"Creationism is the belief that all types of living organisms were created as they are right now by God. \n\nEvolution is the observable idea of small discrepancies in which individual leaves more surviving offspring adding up to create large changes within the species (with every living organism originally coming from one single-celled creature when life on Earth began). \n\nAs you can see, there is very little room for overlap. There are some people who believe evolution is true, but humans were either created or evolved with some \"help\" from god, but there is no observable reason to believe that. Others believe in microevolution (variation in gene frequencies over time) but not [macroevolution](_URL_0_). There is no reason to think macroevolution didn't happen, given the fossil record and how even seemingly unrelated species have shared genes that suggest common ancestry. However, examples of macroevolution haven't happened within recorded history which is one reason people refuse to believe it is possible. "
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88n73s | why is the vietnam war mostly used to refer to ptsd? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/88n73s/eli5_why_is_the_vietnam_war_mostly_used_to_refer/ | {
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"Vietnam was a war characterized by wandering around in the woods/jungle getting ambushed. Combine that with a large number of conscripts and a country finally getting ready to talk about mental illness without calling people pussies or pansies, and you've got a LOT of people talking about what we've always known: \"War is hell.\"",
"I'm not sure about the actual psychology of it but i know there are two main cultural factors, the flashback thing if u hear it from someone under 30 is mostly jokes but its also because there are many more Vietnam veterans still alive compared to the previous big wars. Also many more people saw the Vietnam war as wrong compared to the previous world wars. finally i think that the fact that the soldiers were in conditions most of them hadn't seen before and all their buddies were dying in the wet dark jungles really affected a lot of them. Thats what i know about this question. ",
"mostly because that's when the term first saw widespread use. before the vietnam war traumatized soldiers were simply called shellshocked, from the mortar shells that caused much of the trauma",
"It's one of the first times we started thinking of it as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but before we started preparing soldiers to deal with it. It was also the last war that the US relied on the draft, so most of the soldiers weren't prepared for *anything*. There were shifting, changing social expectations for how people could express negative feelings.\n\nPrevious wars were just as traumatic, but WWI gave people \"shell shock\" not \"PTSD\". In hindsight, it's just PTSD but no one called it that. Everyone knew how awful WWI was, so it was kind of expected. Since the US was late to the war, we didn't experience the same kind of cultural zeitgeist of so many soldiers coming back with shell shock. WWII was traumatic, obviously, but there was a lot of morality wrapped up, so the soldiers came back as heroes. Their poor behavior due to PTSD was excused. Alcoholism and domestic abused were ignored, and even expected from some of the soldiers coming home.\n\nAnd, importantly if a bit morbid, most of them are dead now. They aren't as present in our society so they're not visible.\n\nVietnam was recent enough that most of the soldiers that survived the war are still alive today, and still visible. Vietnam was an unpopular war, wrapped up in a lot of moral and ethical questions that made the soldiers kind of unpopular along with it. Our culture shifted so that the negative coping mechanisms like alcoholism and violence weren't excused anymore. We finally recognized PTSD as a psychological disorder and by defining it we make it easier to talk about. Someone might come back from WWII and be angry or upset and dislike loud noises, but it's not \"PTSD\" it's just *how they are*. Recognizing PTSD also opens the door for the people suffering from it to be vulnerable.\n\nSoldiers are often stuck in this terrible dichotomy of having to maintain the expectation of the tough, strong, stoic warrior, and also *needing* to express their fear and sadness. Vietnam was also in this really awkward period when we as a country still remembered the greatness of the WWII veterans - some of whom went on to fight in Vietnam - and expected that from the Vietnam vets while simultaneously pretending it was ok for them need help, but actually not letting them get help.\n\nSoldiers in wars today are in a less awkward position since PTSD is more known and expected. *That said* it still sucks for most soldiers because as much as we are more aware they're still expected to be strong and stoic and warrior-like. The culture has just shifted again so that they tend not to be as vocal about it. And they still are vocal about it, but 'Nam was kind of the first time it happened."
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3awiti | why does my (android) phone care if i use the original charger? | When I needed to get a new micro usb charger for my HTC one, and with other phones as well, I started getting the message that charging will happen slowly and that I should use the original charger. What is the difference in the one that came with the HTC and the one that I got from amazon that determines how fast/slow it charges? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3awiti/eli5_why_does_my_android_phone_care_if_i_use_the/ | {
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"Think about using a garden hose to fill a bucket of water. \nEven though the water flowing through the tap can fill the bucket in 20 seconds, the nozzle on the hose slows down the flow and it takes 40 seconds. \nSimilarly the charging cable is the limiting factor, although the convenient nozzle can be bought in different sizes instead of being changed by us directly. \nIf you have a good understanding of how electricity works, someone else would be better able to explain to you what's technically happening.",
"Some devices require more charging CURRENT, not voltage, than others. An iPad, for instance, will not charge at a sensible pace with an iPhone charger because the iPhone charger is only supplying 1000mA of current, as opposed to the 2100mA the iPad's charger supplies. The HTC One M8's charger is a 1200mA example, and it is likely that your replacement is only giving 1000mA. It's for this same reason that your phone charges slowly when connected to a peripheral USB port on a computer, as the USB 2.0 standard only specifies a 500mA current.\n\nEdit - This explanation only applies to phones such as OP's which charge over USB, which is always 5V. Proprietary means of charging may use any voltage they like, obviously within reason.",
"For the most part, they don't. I have a house full of phones and chargers and I almost never bother paying attention to which phone or tablet is connected to which charger.\n\nSome chargers, and the USB ports on your computer, can only provide 500 mA of current. Others can provide more. The device can tell which is which, and some devices which need a lot of current will simply refuse to try to charge on a weak source.\n\nIn your particular case, you had a weak charger and your device recognized it as such. You got that warning, but your device's charging circuitry will still do the best it can.\n\nIn addition, manufacturers don't want you connecting their devices on some cheap-ass charger that they don't know where it came from. For all you know, that cheap charger isn't putting out a clean voltage that adheres to the standards. The manufacturers don't want you calling tech support because some junk charger set off a voltage spike that fried the charging circuit.\n\nBut assuming the charger adheres to the standard properly, and can put out enough current, you can put any USB charger on any device.\n\nSource: used to work on this stuff for a living."
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milnb | dht (trackerless torrents) | Hi
How does this work? How do the clients find each other?
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/milnb/eli5_dht_trackerless_torrents/ | {
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"They don't, effectively what occurs is rather then have one tracker per torrent that contains every node(participant) for a particular torrent, you join a sort of mesh node in which you only need one node to join the rest. By finding one node you gain access to the torrent tracker list, however once on that list you get every other node in that list as well. If the original tracker you joined goes down you are still apart of the cloud tracker.",
"They don't, effectively what occurs is rather then have one tracker per torrent that contains every node(participant) for a particular torrent, you join a sort of mesh node in which you only need one node to join the rest. By finding one node you gain access to the torrent tracker list, however once on that list you get every other node in that list as well. If the original tracker you joined goes down you are still apart of the cloud tracker."
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3x4fuw | how does the lid of a brita filter know when the actual filter needs to be replaced? | Y'know, with the red/yellow/green light system. Is it just a timer that keeps track of the time that's lapsed since you last reset? Does it actually have some way of "reading" the filter? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3x4fuw/eli5_how_does_the_lid_of_a_brita_filter_know_when/ | {
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"Yes, it's just on a timer. The timer is based on normal use.\n\nIf you use something sparsely, you can mostly slack off and just replace the filter when you get around to it. If you use it actively, you might consider changing it right on time.\n\n"
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25tps7 | how "hackers" can find all of somebodys personal information so easily, with nothing to go off of but a reddit account, or something similar. | I've heard of people getting all of their personal information like birthdate, full name, and location released on the internet because of a controversial reddit post or something similar.
How is it possible for someone to gain all of somebody else's information like this seemingly so easily?
Note: Not looking to do this to anyone, just genuinely interested and looking to learn how to better protect myself.
| explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/25tps7/eli5_how_hackers_can_find_all_of_somebodys/ | {
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"Look through a person entire comment history. Most likely they have given out tons of information like their age, location, educational history, name, etc over time. Any photos uploaded from a digital camera will have EXIF data which contains information like location so thats always a valuable source of information. From here they can just Google and search social media sites with the information that they have until they hit a match or just can't find anything.\n\nHow is it so easy? People are just unaware of how reckless they are with their data. People really are just beginning to fully realize the implications of the fact that something stays on the internet forever.",
"If you don't compartmentalize your internet identity, you can follow a person from one place to another, collecting more and more info. So, if you can find my facebook account, and associate it with my reddit account, and possibly a couple other online accounts, you can create a pretty good picture of who I am. Even if I'm good at not posting revealing info directly on reddit, I may not be as careful elsewhere.",
"There was a scam artist who would look up people's information on facebook, dating sites, and other such places. From there he was call up the person's bank and take a loan out on the house. \n\nHere is the thing he was doing this to people who lived in million dollar homes, all with information they left in public.",
"I was on 4chan and saw it all unfold. Educating and frightening.\n\nA housewife had nudes leaked onto /b/\n\nSome one knew her name 'Jane doe'\n\nAnons searched social networks for that name\n\nFound her on google plus\n\nA lot of info was public on there including cell number and birth date. She was friends with her husband on there\n\nHusband was then found on Facebook, she was found through husband\n\nWork and education history fully public on Facebook including a business run from home.\n\nGoogle the business find home address\n\nAlso reverse image search her profile picture to find accounts on other services linked to Facebook login, such as Pinterest and Instagram\n\nAny detail was googled to find yet more info. Be wary of using same profile photo on multiple sites, and using the same username across sites.\n\n4chan, knowing her birthdate and address decided to send her cards and gifts.\n\nShe then did a Q & A on 4chan saying thanks. It was the best case of handling the 4chan mob I had ever seen.",
"People talk too much. Loose lips sink ships.\n\nOn another message forum, there was a guy who stated that he valued his anonymity, and never gave out identifying details. Did he really? I wondered, and started going back through his old postings.\n\nHe mentioned what state he was in. He said he lived in a very small town (but did not name it). In other posts, he mentioned things about his town that let me identify which one it was.\n\nThen in another post, he described a newsworthy event he was involved in. Although he was careful to give no meaningful identifying info in that post, I already knew what town he lived in so it was easy to search for newsworthy events of that type, at that time, at that town.\n\nAnd I found a news article about that event. It was just as he described it. And it gave his name.\n\nWith his name, and town, phone book gave his address and google street view gave me a picture of the street outside his house.\n\nSo in response to his claim that he was internet anonymous and valued secrecy, I sent him back a picture of his house. He was mortified... but he should not have been. He himself had told me everything.\n\nAnd I'd done that just for fun, as an experiment, to see how easy it was. People with more experience should have no problem.\n"
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2nmofr | from a scientific points of view, what's going on when someone "feels the presence of god" (or any other deity for that matter)? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2nmofr/eli5_from_a_scientific_points_of_view_whats_going/ | {
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"I come from a religious family and childhood and I've best rationalized these \"holy feelings\" and presences as a influx of dopamine or some other neurotransmitter responsible for the unexplainable feeling commonly cited as god. Religion is a drug like everything else.",
"To be fair, there could be an almost infinite amount of answers to this. Depends entirely on the circumstances/person.",
"It has been proposed that the Temporal lobe of the brain may contain areas that are involved in religious feelings or experiences.\n\nPeople with Temporal lobe epilepsy [sometimes have religious experiences relating to their seizures.](_URL_1_)\n\nManipulation of the Temporal lobe through through magnetic stimulation has also shown similar effects, as with the famous, but controversial, [\"God Helmet\" experiment.](_URL_0_)\n\nThese effects aren't well understood yet, but there's some evidence to suggest a possible brain-based explanation for at least some of the experiences that people normally attribute to God(s). More research is definitely needed.\n\nEdited to make it more clear that these ideas represent a hypothesis which is not yet confirmed.",
"I think it's just a placebo effect thing. Derren Brown forced the feeling on an atheist. _URL_0_",
"It is probably more of a psychology question. Freud would have some stiff words about the state of said person's mind"
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21cv3h | how is it that old japanese houses seem to be made mostly of paper, but don't seem to experience any problems during rain seasons? | Just generally curious as to how this works. For example if one of these were built in, say England would it survive the rainy weather?
Edit:wow I got a lot more responses than I expected! thanks everyone. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/21cv3h/eli5how_is_it_that_old_japanese_houses_seem_to_be/ | {
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" I have a cousin who lives in the Philippines and he told me recently that in the poorer parts of the country the houses are made out of advertisements...like builboards. He also told me that if theres a pot hole in the street they'll fill it with buckets, very strange. \n\nEdit: I know this is a little off topic, kinda just felt like sharing :)",
"They have sliding wooden doors that glide in front of the more delicate paper walls to protect them. Some of those have been replaced with sliding glass doors or the paper panels themselves on the outer doors are sometimes changed to glass. The paper is also easily replaced if it gets damaged.",
"Traditional japanese buildings are built primarily of wood and wood products, the use of stone being reserved for special buildings such as pagodas. The large roofs, usually made of tile or thatch, we're built to over lap the furthest extremities of the base, providing excellent protection from the elements.",
"Those houses had wooden shutters for protecting the interior from cold and bad weather. The \"shoji\" shutters, which are wood frames with the whitish paper (sometimes you read that it's rice paper, but it's definitely not), are only used for screening in good weather. The screening could be exterior, thus permitting light to pass but keeping out a little wind, bugs, and of course preserving privacy. As well, they can be interior; shoji screens can be used to partition rooms. The screens are often on sliding tracks, but they are built to be removed and stored if the space is needed. ",
"I just spent 3 years in Japan. The rain was never really an issue, but mold and insulation are huge issues there. The woven mats in certain rooms cause a lot of issues too. They have no decent way to handle the humidity change between seasons. They have all kinds of little fixes... Dehumidifiers(electric and absorbents) Tons of mold cleaners are sold(usually bleach based) the A/C units are the equivalent of wall units.",
"You know when Mr. Miyagi told Daniel to \"wax on, wax off\"? - he was actually talking about waxing the paper of walls to make waterproof waxed paper.\n\nActually - exterior walls of Japanese houses are not made out of paper. See these images: [example1](_URL_3_) [example2](_URL_2_) [example3](_URL_1_) [example4](_URL_0_)",
"They often have 2 Sets of doors. The paper doors are thin. They let light in and can slide open letting in air. When hard winds and rain pickup large wooden walls built much sturdier slide out and surround the house creating a tough barrier agienst all elements and providing descent insulation.",
"Everyone else's comments are pretty good (paper wasn't usually used for exterior walls, unless temporarily and in good weather).\n\nOne more thing to point out is that even though some old houses have lasted, the original paper most likely hasn't. Old wooden houses are somewhat rare in Japan because they are prone to fire and often weren't built to last more than a few decades. The traditional houses we still have today either have original glass windows that were installed to replace the paper, or have paper panels that were rebuilt comparatively recently.",
"Japanese homes are traditionally only built to last about 20-30 years, this even occurs in modern some Japanese houses. This is due to housing markets mostly, whereas houses lose all value after about 15 years and are demolished in 30. Historically buildings are rebuilt due to the Shinto practice of Wabi-Sabi, the cycle of death and rebirth... in the case of buildings it is a way to pass down traditional building techniques to the next generation. This is still tradition at some major historical buildings such as the Shrine at Ise. Im a little fuzzy on the history part... its been a while. So perhaps some of these 'old' Japanese houses are not as old as you think.\n\nWhat gives these 'traditional' houses durability is their ability to work with the environment, rather than keeping it out (which is the typical western paradigm). One technique can be seen in the roof overhangs which can sometimes be 2-3 times further out from the edge of the building, keeping direct rain off the screens. Another important element that keeps them 'stable' is that a lot of these buildings are cold weather buildings. By having the exterior and interior air temperature remain relatively the same there is no formation of a dew point on the inside of the wall assembly. By existing in a state of symbiosis with the exterior condensation is essentially 'avoided'. A lot of other reasons have been mentioned in the thread so i won't go into them.\n\nThe question of if it could be built in England brings various connotations when looking for an answer. \n\n-There is the obvious answer of 'yes'... you got the materials and time? then go for it.\n\n-Can you simply copy an existing plan... yes and no. By taking a building out of its designed context it will not perform as it was originally intended, you would have to redesign the building to address new variables such as local climatology. It may stand but its durability may become questionable.\n\n-The philosophical question... does it belong there? probably not.\n\nIf one were looking to build one properly than it would be very expensive by todays construction labor costs. It would actually make more sense to hire a cabinet maker than a typical construction worker, due to the intricacy and exposed nature of the built structure. And as one can deduce a cabinet maker or specialized carpenter is very expensive.\n\nIts been a while since taking my architecture history class so I give you my traditional architectural catch phrase... \"I guarantee nothing.\"\n \n**TL|DR:** Maybe...\n"
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zdpes | how do brainfreezes from cold beverages work? | That crazy feeling in your head, the really cold one? What causes that? Is it something chemically? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/zdpes/eli5_how_do_brainfreezes_from_cold_beverages_work/ | {
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"The cold beverage hits your palate, and causes the capillaries around your sinuses to rapidly contract, because capillaries contract when extreme cold is applied. Then this stimulates some pain receptors, which tell your brain something is fucked. The brain isn't used to taking shit from your sinuses, so it gets its circuits crossed and thinks the pain is coming from your forehead. Once the palate and sinuses warm a bit, things feel better. People say that putting your tongue on the back of the roof of your mouth can help warm them faster."
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6k1hu8 | spf (sun protection factor) what is it exactly and how does the rating work? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6k1hu8/eli5_spf_sun_protection_factor_what_is_it_exactly/ | {
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"SPF is \"relative measure of how long a sunscreen will protect you from ultraviolet (UV) B rays.\" [source](_URL_0_)\n\nFor example, if you normally take 1 minute to burn in the sun and you applied SPF 15, it should theoretically take you 15 minutes to burn.\n\nAdditionally, you typically do not need more than SPF 30 or 50 due to the law of diminishing returns. SPF 30 blocks approximately 97% of UVB rays.\n\n[more source](_URL_1_)"
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7o8ncn | what makes gasoline so special that it can power engines and why is it so difficult to find an alternative fuel source? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7o8ncn/eli5_what_makes_gasoline_so_special_that_it_can/ | {
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"it's flammable, high energy output, easy to transport, and stays liquid in decently wide variety of temperatures. \n\nlots of things can power an internal combustion engine. diesel, peanut oil, alcohol to name a few. ",
"Gasoline has a high energy density. Everything else requires larger tanks or more weight for the same amount of power. And gasoline is remarkably stable in liquid form, so it's pretty safe as a fuel. It's cheap. Lastly, there's a lot of infrastructure built for transporting gasoline.\n\nHydrogen is none of these. Biofuels are are a lot closer to gasoline, but right now, making it eats up arable land and competes with food production, but would be carbon neutral. Batteries are getting better, and a few more generations of incremental improvements will make make using them a more practical choice.\n",
"So, I'm just going to throw this out...gasoline is a specific refinery blend. Many engines/turbines (the important ones) are run on diesel fuel, natural gas, etc. Your car runs on gasoline for some specific reasons, but that 16,000 hp engine at the municipal power plant runs on diesel fuel.\n\nBut for a vehicle you want energy density, safety, and quick refueling. For a car, liquid petroleum distillates were discovered early and are great. You can fill up in 3 minutes. They aren't that dangerous. They are a liquid of almost entirely hydrogen-carbon bonds, pretty good energy density.\n\nLots of alternatives are thrown about. Hydrogen...hard to store, needs extreme compression for energy density, etc. Plug in hybrid...heavy batteries with limited lifespan. Compressed air (yes, every 5-10 years we get a stupid fucking story about Tata making a compressed air car) just unworkable.\n\nEdit: This may have sounded negative, I'm a huge fan of alternative fuels and actually work in the environmental industry. It's just that nothing available is as good as gasoline as a general fuel, and there is nothing on the radar which will be. Yes, a Tesla will blow a comparable gas vehicle off the line in a 1/8 mile, but that doesn't mean it's fully ready for a family that makes $50,000/year.",
"Abundance. It’s relatively simple to build combustion engines that run on rubbing alcohol. \nBut the consumption of gasoline is just shy of a billion gallons a day globally. The annual alcohol production globally is somewhere around 20 billion gallons a year. \n\nThere’s simply SO much more fossil fuels available and production is so high compared to other fuel choices. \n\nIt’s possible to convert a combustion engine to run on any liquid or gas that is flammable. Some work better then others but there isn’t one which is as abundant and convenient. (Natural gas is close)",
"It's pretty easy to get a cheap, economical vehicle that gets 400 miles to a filled up tank of gas, whereas you are lucky to get 100 miles on a battery unless you pay a ton for a Tesla. Also, the range on a battery tends to decline with battery life.\n\nGasoline just has high energy density, is easy and fast to refill a tank, and is widely available.\n\nEven if you came up with a better fuel, it would take quite a while for the logistics to be in place to replace Gasoline's availability.",
"gasoline is like a liquid battery, it's already been charged up with sunlight from millions of years ago, then distilled at high temperatures and pressure (more energy input) deep in the earth (well..ok, deep in the crust...pretty shallow in terms of the actual depth of the earth) then we take it out and burn it to release that built up energy, and we are only around 35-40% efficient at that.\n\nthe issue with alternative fuels is that we have to provide that energy ourselves, or capture it from the sun ourselves. so we can, for instance, MAKE gasoline from algae like nature did, but it's a losing proposition, nature didn't want that energy back and didn't care much about efficiencies...so putting in a lot of heat and pressure over a long period of time, no problem. there have been pretty good advances in this area though.",
"What people fail to realize is that fuel is not the lions share of oil usage. Fuel is almost a byproduct. I work in the gulf coast refineries moving product onto barges. Most movements are HEAVY fuels like #6 oil. Or clear products like Benzene or Styrene. Oil isn't going anywhere for more than just fuel. Also I'd love to see an all electric 18 wheeler that goes more than 5 feet on its current weight. Most shipping is restricted by weight. If you start making the truck heavier then you can ship less products per truck. ",
"The Energy stored in a gas tank is massive, 10 times larger than in the same weight of TNT. Let that sink in - your car's tank is equivalent to 300kg bomb. That's the amount of explosive in WW2 naval torpedo, roughly, enough to sink a battleship. \nHowever, petrol is safe because it needs to be thoroughly mixed with air before it can burn. It actually uses 15 times more air than petrol during combustion (which doesn't have to be carried around in the tank, increasing its performance). This applies to most of the hydrocarbon-based fuels, be it petrol, diesel, liquid gas, alcohol, kerosene. They are all pretty much the same in their elemental composition of carbon-hydrogen-oxygen. Even the fat you store around your waist, your own fuel tank, is pretty much the same as petrol, both in elements and energy density.\n\nPetrol also remains liquid and stable in a huge range of temperatures, covering all but the worst of Earth's climate.\n\nBatteries do not have this safety feature. If they short all that stored energy comes out in a hurry. Right now they have about 1% energy density of petrol and we are constantly fed news about batteries bursting with fire and causing harm. When batteries catch up with petrol in energy density they will become ticking bombs waiting for any malfunction to go off.\n\nThe future lies not in batteries but in using green energy sources (solar, wind, nuclear) to produce synthetic hydrocarbons, using CO2 from atmosphere and water. Literally reversing the chemical processes that burn petrol in engines. Plants do it already but they aren't efficient enough to catch up with our energy demands.",
"Two words: Energy density. \n\nELI5: Gasoline contains more energy per mass (per lb/kg/whatever weight measurement) than any other fuel alternative. \n\nThis means that, per tank of fuel, you can go father that on just about any other fuel source commonly found on Earth. \n\nWhy energy dense? Because of the number of bonds in the hydrocarbons that makeup gasoline that are broken by combustion, releasing energy. \n\nWhy so difficult to find an alternative fuel source? Well, oil occurs naturally - so it's relatively easy and cheap to obtain. Gasoline is distilled from oil - in a relatively straightforward manner. \n\nIn short, it's relatively easy to obtain gasoline from oil and oil is still relatively easy to pump out of the ground. \n\nNo other fuel source is as easily obtainable on Earth. \n\nMost other fuel sources are either not as energy dense (natural gas) or take as much/more energy to synthesize than you get from burning it in a car engine (making it economically non-viable). \n\n",
"Everyone is talking about energy density, which is true, but I think it is interesting to think about why this is.\n\nThe energy in petroleum originally came from the sun. It is mostly made of ancient plants or animals that ate plants. Plants have the ability to store energy from the sun in their cells. The important aspect to this is that a single plant can only get very tiny amount of energy per day from the sun. This is why most plants do not move like animals or have many of the complex systems that animals do. They can't get energy fast enough for that.\n\nAnimals get around this by eating a *ton* of plants so they get the energy benefits of of large amount of solar collecting plants in one day.\n\nPetroleum is made of millions of years of plant (and animal) material with all that stored energy accumulating layer after layer under tremendous pressure underground until it compresses into oil.\n\nIf you think of plants as little batteries with solar panels, petroleum is made of zillions of them compressed into a kind of super battery with a LOT of energy packed into a small place. And because it is underground it is cheap to get.\n\nMan-made solar panels have the same issue plants do. They can only get energy at a certain, slow rate. You can't run your car just on the energy you would get from covering it with solar panels or windmills. There literally isn't enough energy coming in fast enough. Fossil fuels allow us to *cheat* by using up millions of years of solar accumulation at once. \n\nIt will work until we run out of course. It is hard to beat millions of years of accumulation free for the taking underground. Hydrogen is great at storing energy but it isn't just lying around. We have to extract it from other compounds which takes more energy than you get out! "
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3yrota | how super expensive lawyers can get people off from serious charges. | Do they just know more loopholes than a cheaper lawyer would? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3yrota/eli5_how_super_expensive_lawyers_can_get_people/ | {
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"Not a lawyer, but I'd suspect because they can afford to have teams of top notch experts that can exploit one small fact or loophole that raises a reasonable doubt.",
"They can spend more time on a case, for one. A public defender, for example, may have dozens of cases running at a time, but a law firm for a wealthy defendant may have multiple lawyers and clerks working on this single case. So, having more time, they can gather more information, research case law more thoroughly, and even do things like jury research (although there is little evidence that it helps). Information is power, the court is no exception.",
"I know one way it works in the commercial world - you make the case so fucking expensive that it is not in the other sides interest to continue. ",
"The general idea of criminal defense is to \"find\" as many holes as possible in the prosecution's case. Because the burden of proof is \"beyond a reasonable doubt,\" the more holes you can find the less \"beyond a reasonable doubt\" it seems to a jury. Top notch attorneys tend to be smarter, but also much more experienced, resourceful and connected. These attorneys can hire their own top notch experts (e.g., doctors, ballistics experts, whatever type of experts necessary) to find these holes, or make the holes bigger, or even just to get more brainpower on case strategy (i.e., hire additional top notch attorneys). Additionally, by the way they're paid, they can devote more time, energy and resources to the single case. ",
"You're paying an attorney for his time. But an attorney also needs to have a solid number of clients to give him work to fill the days. If I charge $125 an hour, I need to get more clients, but then can only spend less time on a given client. But if a given client wants/needs me to spend extra time, looking for every possible way out of a bind, it's not just a matter of saying \"I'm going to pay you for all your time,\" because focusing on one client means not taking on other clients. So that means instead of charging $125, I'll need to start charging $300.\n\nNow that I have the time and compensation to delve even deeper than reasonably necessary to explore every conceivable option, I can do that. I can hire more/better experts, I can spend more time writing motions and briefs, etc.\n\nTl;dr- a very expensive attorney is charging a premium for his undivided attention at the expense of building a client base. ",
"They don't. But with more time, you can do more stuff. Prosecutors for small cases don't want to put lots of time in. Hassling them with extra work is an easy way to get a better offer.\n\nAdditionally, public defender use loopholes too. In fact, they are probably better at them. Public defenders just get a ton of shitty cases which you can't really defend. It's easier to get better results when you turn away hopeless cases like private attorneys do. \n\nSource: was a PD",
"Paperwork, time, and experts. The expensive lawyer will know roughly the same as the cheap lawyer. The expensive lawyer, however, can afford to challenge every aspect of the arrest, evidence gathering, and trial procedure. He may lose 95% of them, but the prosecution has to defend against all of them, and a few motions may end up being granted that otherwise wouldn't be. The cheap lawyer will have other cases, and needs the money from them to pay bills, and so will only target the issues in a case that they have the best chance of winning a motion on. \n\nThe expensive lawyer can also hire experts and investigators at will. Expert testimony has significant weight with a jury, and almost any case can involve tons of expert witnesses with enough creativity - ballistics, psychology, forensics, eyewitness testimony, you can challenge all of it. Conversely, cheap attorneys have to get funds from their client or the court to get expert testimony. Similarly, investigators can dig up evidence that can throw doubt on a witness's motive for testifying, suspects police overlooked, witnesses nobody else thought of or could find, or other discrepancies that allow the defense to offer an alternate theory of the crime. Cheap attorneys have their client's statements, police statements and evidence, and any witnesses they choose to subpoena as a result of those statements. \n\nLike most things in life, more money means more options. It's the difference between an entry-level PC and a water-cooled rig, a motor scooter vs a motorcycle, and a basic defense versus a comprehensive defense. "
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6epcbr | why do people care so much about protecting coal mining jobs when only about 70,000 people are employed by coal? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6epcbr/eli5_why_do_people_care_so_much_about_protecting/ | {
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"they don't, and those jobs are gone and not coming back. \n\npoliticians pander to people who used to be employed by the coal industry because those people are angry at a system that failed them, and therefore ripe to switch party loyalties. ",
"Because of how the electoral systems works, those 70,000 people represent a decent voter-share in their region. And to non-coal miners, who know literally nothing about the industry (or the number of people effected), it sounds like they're protecting a \"hard working, honest man's job\".",
"It's not so much that people care about the 70,000 coal jobs, it's that they care about coal towns. Specifically there are many rural towns and cities that exist because at one point a coal mine was there. The loss of the coal mine means no more mining jobs, and since the entire town exists to support the coal mine, the towns cease to have a reason to exist. So the people that work in the grocery store, restaurants, clothing stores, doctors, lawyers, etc cease to have people with money that can afford their services, so the entire town dies out. Essentially the coal mine was the singular source of cash inflow into the town, every dollar spent on things, like building materials, cars, gas, amazon, etc, is money flowing out of the city. Eventually it all runs dry and everyone loses their job.\n\nWe are at that point now, that 70,000 number is the number of jobs left that results in entire towns ceasing to exist. In the 80's that number was ~250k. And each one of those jobs were essentially supporting multiple jobs within the town.\n\nAdd into the fact that people in states with lower populations have proportionally more voting power, then those states get proportionally more say in what is discussed."
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6pat3v | why are eli5 responses auto moderated such that short answers are excluded? when explaining something to a five year old its best to not be too verbose. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6pat3v/eli5_why_are_eli5_responses_auto_moderated_such/ | {
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"I just got pinged on one of these short responses...\n\nThe rationale is that questions with such short an answer aren't really asking for something to be *explained*. They're usually fact-checking answers, something that would pop up with a google search. If a question really doesn't deserve more than a short answer, it's probably not ELI5."
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29x7am | what all the verbal exchanges going on in a soccer pitch are and how international players seem to dialogue | I've been keenly watching the World Cup and some behaviour has piqued my interest.
First, why do players *always* seem to have something to say to the referee when he penalises them/their side...and what do they actually discuss when the side with a complaint throng him?
Second, are players allowed to argue or contest the referee's decision/confusion...especially as passionately as they do?
Finally, what is the language used by the ref and players during international matches with countries that don't share a common tongue?
To add to that, when opposing players have an altercation and they appear to be arguing, does everyone just go at it in their languages?
(My dad says when you're insulting someone, no one says they have to know what you're saying, hehe)
*Sorry for all the questions, and if they've been asked before but hopefully this will clear up some confusion for me* | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/29x7am/eli5_what_all_the_verbal_exchanges_going_on_in_a/ | {
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"Most players and refs are multilingual, especially the refs. Only designated captains, the ones with the armbands, are allowed to come argue with the ref, all the other players are risking a card. They have to be polite or risk getting a card for dissension. The ref will usually speak to them in common language, often English, Spanish, or French. Many of the international players play in professional leagues with each other, so often times they know each other and will chat. That's not to say that insults aren't thrown around, and often they are spoken in their own language to get away with them. Famously in the 2006 WC championship, the Italian player insulted Zidane's mother which Zidane's responded with a head butt. "
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3rmid0 | fasting before general anaesthetic. | Wife is going under general anaesthetic and is on nil by mouth 10hours beforehand. What difference does it make if you have partially digested food in your stomach? What difference does it make if you had a glass of water 5 hours ago? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3rmid0/eli5_fasting_before_general_anaesthetic/ | {
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"If something happens (a reaction to the anaesthetic, some other drug, or some physical stimulus) and you happen to throw up while you're fully anaesthetized, you can choke on it just like someone who's passed out due to alcohol or street drugs. And while in an operating room they DO have the equipment available to suction you out if it happens, having to stop the operation to do so can cause complications. To further complicate things, even getting immediately suctioned out in the OR won't necessarily stop anything you inhaled that got too far down to reach from giving you aspiration pneumonia, which will certainly make your recovery more difficult.\n\nTLDR: Empty stomach means you can't choke on vomit and fuck up the surgery and recovery process."
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f36xzz | why do laptops struggle while phones are so capable? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/f36xzz/eli5_why_do_laptops_struggle_while_phones_are_so/ | {
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"Mobile games are designed to be much easier to run compared too those on PC. Many flagship mobile phones are relatively similarly in specs - meaning developers can create their games knowing their users will have those specs or lower. Modern gaming laptops are quite powerful however, newer systems can pack ~6 cores (many mobile phones will have ~8 cores, albeit weaker) and strong graphics processors that are designed to run in hot areas with little airflow.",
"Phones are intended to do one task usually one which isn't very resource intensive. Your phone will happily thermal throttle (reduce performance due to heat) to prevent it from overheating. Computers are intended for complex multitasking while running powerful applications which are expected to be running at peak performance constantly. The only way to achieve this performance is with active cooling (eg: fans)."
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3h9r8r | why can some people eat vast amounts of food but do not appear to gain weight, tenfold to the people that do gain weight from bulk amounts of food? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3h9r8r/eli5_why_can_some_people_eat_vast_amounts_of_food/ | {
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"text": [
"Someone who eats a lot of salad is going to be consuming fewer calories than someone who eats a couple of cheeseburgers. You need to pay attention to what it is being eaten.",
"They're eating at a caloric balance or deficit whereas than those who gain weight are eating at a caloric surplus.\n\nIf two people are the same sex, height and current mass and also engage in the same amount of physical activity they have basically the same caloric expenditure every day. If one eats 500 kcal below their expenditure they'll lose roughly 1lb/wk. If the other eats 500kcal above their caloric expenditure they'll gain roughly 1lb/wk. \n\nIf one is eating a truckload of broccoli and the other meals of buttered bacon then the broccoli guy can graze all day and still lose weight whereas the butter-bacon guy can eat maybe 1.5 meals worth of food before hitting a caloric surplus. ",
"People overall do not accurately track their food intake. Overweight people tend to vastly underestimate their consumption, underweight people tend to overestimate their consumption, and some healthy weight people also tend to do the same.\n\n\nThere are exceptions, of course. But they are exceptions. Statistically anyone who tells you that they eat a lot and never gain weight or more commonly the opposite where they say they barely eat and can't lose weight are lying or uninformed.\n\n\nTo see this in practice with some real life examples, try to watch Secret Eaters, a British TV show about overweight people and their hidden eating habits.",
"They don't exist.\n\nIt's all false equivalence, and anyone who says otherwise is simply wrong, as it violates the laws of thermodynamics. Energy in - energy out = weight gain/loss. It's literally impossible for someone to consume more than their bodies burn and still lose/maintain weight.\n\nThere are plenty of people who are \"social eaters\", who eat large meals at restaurants and with friends and then eat very little the rest of the day. It may be this, and you are perceiving them to eat the same all day long.\n\nThere are plenty of people who are \"shame eaters\", who eat very little with friends so they don't \"look like a pig\", then snack constantly throughout the day and eat large meals at home."
]
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[],
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||
5mzxhr | what would happen if someone who hasn't lost any blood got a standard blood transfusion (450 ml)? | Hypothetically, what would happen if someone who has never in their life lost significant amounts of blood got injected with 450 mL of someone else's (compatible) blood?
If it's something gory like veins exploding, please explain in great detail. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5mzxhr/eli5_what_would_happen_if_someone_who_hasnt_lost/ | {
"a_id": [
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"This is actually a popular way for some athletes to improve their performance. Im not familiar with all the details, but from what I understand it gives more energy and slightly enhanced physical abilities for a short time as the body works to break down the extra blood.",
"It wouldn't be enough to be noticed in that regard. Veins and arteries can stretch quite a bit and the volume of liquids flowing through them varies. Blood cells are only a portion of what flows through there.\n\nIt would be the same as getting a saline IV."
]
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[],
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2fnwha | why is steak better the lesser cooked it is? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2fnwha/eli5_why_is_steak_better_the_lesser_cooked_it_is/ | {
"a_id": [
"ckb0jx4"
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"score": [
6
],
"text": [
"It allows the steak to keep it's unique flavor. If you take $300 steak and a $10 steak and cook them both well done, they're going to taste pretty much the same."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
45eahj | why can thumbnails on reddit still be seen if the photo is already deleted? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/45eahj/eli5_why_can_thumbnails_on_reddit_still_be_seen/ | {
"a_id": [
"czx6r3w"
],
"score": [
2
],
"text": [
"Instead of polling the Imgur servers for the thumbnail every time anyone on Reddit loads a page, Reddit fetches the thumbnail and stores it locally before serving it to Reddit users. That greatly reduces the demand on Imgur servers."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
5inc60 | why do electric motors overheat and get damaged when they are stalled but don't when they run? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5inc60/eli5_why_do_electric_motors_overheat_and_get/ | {
"a_id": [
"db9iqpa"
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"score": [
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"text": [
"Many electric motors have a small fan on their axis, which they need for cooling the copper coils. When the motor stalls, the fan won't do anything - but the motor still uses electricity, and therefore generates heat. Since there is no airflow to dissipate it, the motor can overheat.\n\nIn addition to that, DC motors essentially short out when they stall. This is because when the motor is running, the rotation of the motor induces a voltage into the copper coil which points in the opposite direction to the voltage applied to the motor, effectively reducing the current flowing through it. This is also why you can turn some motors into generators if you spin them.\n\nNow if the motor is not rotating at all, there is nothing pushing against the the voltage from the power source, and the maximum amount of current can flow through the motor. A lot of current also means a lot of heat generated within the motor, which is not dissipated because the fan isn't running.\n\nEdit: It's worth noting that this only applies to simple brushed DC motors, in which there is an unbroken electric circuit between power source and the copper coils. Brushless DC motors have an electronic circuit driving the voltage applied to the coils, which makes it trivial to prevent it from overheating - they can simply shut off if the motor stalls. Powerful brushed motors also usually come with some sort of overheating protection which prevent it from going up in flames. This can be as simple as a bimetal switch, which opens up when it gets hot."
]
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[]
] |
||
7sc1yd | how does a camera focus have a set lower limit but an infinite upper limit? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7sc1yd/eli5_how_does_a_camera_focus_have_a_set_lower/ | {
"a_id": [
"dt3q30n"
],
"score": [
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"text": [
"The camera lens has to bend the light to focus it on the sensor. The closer the object is, the more the lens has to bend the light to focus it on the sensor. The farther away, the less it has to bend it. Objects infinitely far away barely need any focusing at all."
]
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[]
] |
||
38mqua | why does it take state gov'ts several weeks to issue new driver's licenses? | You would think that a citizen could go in, fill out the paperwork, pay for the renewal, and the worker could update a database, and boom. New ID is printed within minutes and all good. Why does it take so long?? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/38mqua/eli5_why_does_it_take_state_govts_several_weeks/ | {
"a_id": [
"crw71dr",
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"score": [
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"text": [
"What state do you live in? In Illinois it is just like you say it should be. \n\nMany things can be done online that used to require a trip to the Secretary of State office(DMV). It's up to your Secretary of State to enact these improvements to the system.\n\nIf yours isn't doing that then you should vote for someone who will. ",
"In Kentucky you go to the DMV with your old license and then you paid 12$ they ask if your address has changed you say no. You sign the donor card and take two pictures because the first one you have your eyes shut. You wait exactly 3 minutes and your new license is printed and handed to you. It is still warm from the printing process when I get it. Waiting in the waiting room takes longer than getting the license. Source just got my CDL renewed with new address."
]
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[],
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|
8uqq60 | when oil prices are down and there is a surplus of fuel; based on supply and demand why are prices at the pumps highest. should the price of gasoline not be relative to crude? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8uqq60/eli5_when_oil_prices_are_down_and_there_is_a/ | {
"a_id": [
"e1hg157"
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"score": [
7
],
"text": [
"While they are tied, there is a lag between the time the crude is purchased, transported, refined, stored, distributed and eventually hits your local gas pump. Of course stations seem to raise prices immediately upon increase of crude prices while only lowering prices once lower cost crude has worked its way through the system."
]
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[]
] |
|
5zt5bz | why are there caps on passwords? | Limitations and requirements are irritating enough, why do some things (in my situation, online banking) have a limit on how large your password can be? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5zt5bz/eli5_why_are_there_caps_on_passwords/ | {
"a_id": [
"df0t91y"
],
"score": [
12
],
"text": [
"Their databases were set up with maximum character counts per cell. When configuring a DB, you set character limits."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
|
elvg4c | how do heat-seeking missiles pick their targets? how do flares change that? and why then do flares only work some of the time when deployed? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/elvg4c/eli5_how_do_heatseeking_missiles_pick_their/ | {
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"text": [
"They have an infrared camera, which sees temperature instead of visible light.\n\nThe exhaust of a jet engine is typically the hottest thing in the sky (other than the sun, which is off the scale entirely) and the missle will chase that hot spot.\n\nFlares burn hot enough to produce more heat signals in the missile's field of view, forcing the guidance system to try and pick the right one.\n\nIt may still pick correctly depending on how advanced the targeting system is, how effective the flares are at mimicking a jet engine, and sheer dumb luck.\n\nFriendly combat aircraft will typically carry a radio transponder that the missile guidance system will check for before targeting so you don't accidentally target yourself or your wingmen. The code is set just before the mission so the enemy can't try to copy it.",
"Jet engines burn extremely hot. An infrared \"heat seeking\" missile has optics on it that looks for this heat and guides the missile towards this source of heat. Of course, its not as super simple as that, as these missiles are generally pretty advanced to specifically look for the heat coming from a jet engine as to not be lead astray by countermeasures.\n\nA flare is trying to produce a huge blast of light and heat to trick the optics in the missile to think that it is the right target instead. Of course though the missile, being fairly smart, also is \"trained\" to try to not be tricked. It's a bit of cat and mouse.",
"You know how your eyes can see colors? When something is hot or burning it gives off light, usually yellow, orange, or red, but it also gives off light in colors we can't see.\n\nA heat-seeking missile has a camera at the front that's made to see only the colors things make when they get hot. Since airplanes have jet engines and they fly very fast, the airplane is much hotter than the air and it's something the special camera can see. There's a computer inside the missile that flies it toward what it sees that's very hot.\n\nA flare is very, very hot and is very bright in light we can and can't see. The camera on the missile sees the flare and either it follows the flare, because it's very hot, or the camera gets confused and doesn't know if it should look at the flare or the airplane. Since the plane is moving so fast, the missile then can't find the plane again and can't catch it.\n\nSometimes even when an airplane drops a bunch of flares to confuse the heat-seeking camera, the camera keeps looking at the plane or keeps heading toward the plane and then sees it again. New missiles have computers which don't care about flares because they're too bright, so it keeps looking at the airplane.",
"they have built in IR cameras, often they are marked ot chase plane exhaust since it generally the hottest signal in the sky barring the sun\n\nflare attempt ot divert the missile by placing more heat signatures in the missile's field of view, forcing the onboard computer to figure out which si the right one: depending on how good the targetting system is, this might work or not.(most advanced targetting system will also try ot rea for the aircraft's transponders, making htem able ot discern ally from foe)"
]
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||
8r1cql | how are singers/vocalists able to use their voice for so long without getting sore? | After 5 or so minutes of singing along to Queen classics in the shower, I feel as if I’ve just smoked a carton of cigarettes. How are performers who use their voice able to do so for long periods of time without hurting themselves? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8r1cql/eli5_how_are_singersvocalists_able_to_use_their/ | {
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"text": [
"It’s all about the right technique, warm-ups and exercise - just like any other sport, really. Still, it is bloody impressive.",
"Practise! The more you sing and practise good singing habits the stronger your voice and lungs get, so the longer you can sing for. ",
"As well as warmups, technique, practising, consider that Freddie Mercury had a huge vocal range and he used all of it. Since you don't sing regularly for long periods of time, like concerts or rehearsals, your vocal range (how high and how low you're able to sing) is smaller than his and you use it less often, so it's more work for you when you do. I've been singing in classical choirs for 10 years and the more you do it, the easier it gets. If you practice singing things that are high for you, your range will expand upwards. If you sing lower more often, you will find it easier to sing low notes eventually. ",
"Your voice uses muscles. Practice over many years and your voice is ripped, and has way more endurance before getting sore.",
"Proper technique. Practice will never help you if you are straining your voice to begin with. The throat must be relaxed, there should be no straining involved. It shouldn’t take much more effort than talking at a mildly raised volume. "
]
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[],
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9kgrxr | why does the effect of caffeine kick in almost immediately but not food poisoning after ingesting something bad? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9kgrxr/eli5why_does_the_effect_of_caffeine_kick_in/ | {
"a_id": [
"e6ywob0"
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"text": [
"Caffeine is a chemical your body absorbs.\n\nFood poisoning on the other hand is not a chemical at all. It’s bacteria and/or viruses. They have an incubation period, meaning there is a time frame they need to reproduce to cause meaningful harm."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[]
] |
||
6mzuch | if i'm riding in an elevator and the cable suddenly snapped, what would happen? | Is there a difference if I was only 5 floors up vs. 50 floors up? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6mzuch/eli5_if_im_riding_in_an_elevator_and_the_cable/ | {
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"text": [
"There are brake systems installed. The look like the ones that stop roller coasters. Two bars clamp down on a rail built onto the car.\n\nAnd a lot of smaller elevators are hydraulic.",
"The brakes would clamp down and the whole thing would lock up. You might feel a jolt but i doubt it would be even that rough. \n\nAt that point you can try to open the doors and see if you're lined up with a floor. Otherwise you might want to sit tight till the fire dept comes. ",
"There is a safety mechanism that would lock the lift in place in case of a cable failure. \n\n_URL_0_",
"Elevators have emergency brakes on them. The simplest design uses what's called a centrifugal governor. If you've ever spun a rope with a weight on the end of it around you're head, that's basically how it works. You have a shaft that's connected to the wheels on the elevator car's tracks. At the other end of this shaft are a set of metal balls mounted on arms that spin around the shaft. If they start rotating too fast (ie the cable breaks and it starts falling), centrifugal force causes the balls to push outwards, tugging on the arms, which activates a lever that engages the brake. Usually a drum brake. It's a simple and reliable system that's been in use for some 200 years to automatically slow down or stop various devices. Though I'm sure this is all done electronically in modern elevators.\n\nFor shorter falls, elevators have what's called a buffer at the bottom of the shaft. It's just a giant shock absorber that cushions the fall. \n\n\n\n\n\n\n"
]
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"https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisha_Otis?wprov=sfla1"
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jqujy | what is the difference between an atom, a molecule, and an element? | I have never fully understood the relationship between them. For example, if I understand correctly, a molecule of water can be expressed like H2O, with H and O being elements, but can't oxygen itself be considered a molecule? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/jqujy/eli5_what_is_the_difference_between_an_atom_a/ | {
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"text": [
"Think of it like Legos. An *atom* is one block. A *molecule* is 2 or more blocks stuck together. An *element* is the type of block (for example, hydrogen might be like a 1x1 block and oxygen could be a 4x4 block).\n\nA molecule of water, or H2O, is 2 hydrogen blocks connected to 1 oxygen block.\n\nOxygen isn't a molecule, I don't know what that part is supposed to mean. Perhaps you are thinking about a molecule of oxygen gas, or O2. In other words, 2 blocks of oxygen stuck together.",
"Think of it like Legos. An *atom* is one block. A *molecule* is 2 or more blocks stuck together. An *element* is the type of block (for example, hydrogen might be like a 1x1 block and oxygen could be a 4x4 block).\n\nA molecule of water, or H2O, is 2 hydrogen blocks connected to 1 oxygen block.\n\nOxygen isn't a molecule, I don't know what that part is supposed to mean. Perhaps you are thinking about a molecule of oxygen gas, or O2. In other words, 2 blocks of oxygen stuck together."
]
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[],
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7cnv5d | why do we no longer have to dial a one or zero before placing a long distance call? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7cnv5d/eli5why_do_we_no_longer_have_to_dial_a_one_or/ | {
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"text": [
"Assuming you mean in North America.\nThe _URL_0_\n\nThe +1 was a way to accept toll charges, most phone plans now include no long distance charges. so the 1 is no longer required.\n\n* 10-digit dialing: NPA NXX xxxx\n* 11-digit dialing: 1 NPA NXX xxxx (1 is the NANP trunk prefix for long distance circuits)\n\nSince most phone companies now include national long distance. the 1 is no longer needed.\n\nThe reason that almost everyone has to dial the area code even for local calls is because of the overlay of area codes over existing areas.\n\n\nsource: Wikipedia, and I work for a phone provider",
"Old phone systems would listen to numbers as they were dialed, so when you pressed the first key, it registered that number, then when you pressed the second key, it registered that number, and so on.\n\nThe \"1\" indicated that you were entering a ten digit number with an area code. Otherwise after the seventh key, the phone system would not know if you were going to enter three more digits, or if it should connect the call. That's also why you had to enter \"9\" on business phone systems, so that it'd know if you were dialing outside and should expect a 7-10 digit number, or dialing an extension and should expect a 3-4 digit number.\n\nModern phone systems are way more intelligent, making the \"1\" no longer necessary. Particularly for cell phones, since they send the number all at once, so the phone system can just look at the whole number instead of reading it digit-by-digit."
]
} | [] | [] | [
[
"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Numbering_Plan"
],
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] |
||
ldvfn | what is a gamma function, and how does it work? | My GSI went off on a small tangent about gamma functions during discussion when we were talking about how you supposedly couldn't take the factorial of a non-integer. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/ldvfn/eli5_what_is_a_gamma_function_and_how_does_it_work/ | {
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"text": [
"It's a way of extending the factorial function to non-integers in a \"sensible\" way, where \"sensible\" means in a certain technical sense.",
"At some point, mathematics becomes mathemagic.",
"It's a way of extending the factorial function to non-integers in a \"sensible\" way, where \"sensible\" means in a certain technical sense.",
"At some point, mathematics becomes mathemagic."
]
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5meb4s | why do we feel the urge to chew/pick at/mess with sores in our mouth, even though we know doing so will make it worse? | Is there a scientific reason we do this? My brain logically tells me that I should bite at the sore in my mouth, etc... but my body feels the urge to mess with it even though it only worsens the problem. ELI5 why this happens? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5meb4s/eli5_why_do_we_feel_the_urge_to_chewpick_atmess/ | {
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"text": [
"It's just the novelty of it. It's something odd and out of place on your mouth and I'm sure it may also be similar to why animals lick their wounds. The mouth *is* the fastest healing part of the body and maybe the constant exposing of damaged tissue to saliva may have a healing/anti-infection aspect?",
"Great question! Two important mechanisms: innervation and gate control theory.\n\nFirst, innervation. What's very different from the inside of the mouth and the tongue compared to skin elsewhere in the body (except the fingertips), is that its greatly sensorily innervated! This means it is much more sensitive to physical stimuli. So abnormal sensations, like aphthae, that occur in the buccal mucosa or on the tongue, are brought to awareness much more than stimuli elsewhere. When something is continuously within awareness, it stimulates a response. Which will be you to touch/press on the painful/uncomfortable area.\n\nHave you heard of the *sensory cortical homunculus*? It's a cartoon that depicts the size of the brain areas involved in the sensory innervation of different body parts. You should see how big the lips and tongue are on the sensory homunculus, compared to the rest of the body. Google it (not the motor homunculus!). \n\nSecondly, the gate control theory of pain. There are different sensory inputs that are each processed slightly differently on neurological level: pain, soft touch, rough touch, temperature and proprioception. What this theory basically asserts is that when there is pain in a specific area of the body, applying non-painful stimuli (e.g. soft or rough touch) to the same body part closes the \"gates\" to painful inputs. Thus, non-painful stimuli can alleviate pain slightly by suppressing its neural conduction! This is also the reason why people are quick to put there hands on painful areas (e.g. hand on forehead when having a headache)."
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1tjev5 | in the age of the internet, how come thousands of great magic tricks remain secret? if they're not, where do i visit!? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1tjev5/eli5_in_the_age_of_the_internet_how_come/ | {
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"Even in the age of the Internet, there's one additional secret magician are hiding: they're guarding an empty safe.\n\nThe secrets to most tricks are either uninteresting in and of themselves, without the flair and presentation, or so technical that there's no point in studying it unless you're actually going to put the hard work in to actually learn, perform it, and dress it up with showmanship.\n\nAs Drakeytown so succinctly put it, the secrets themselves are little more than a few keyword searches away. What really protects them is the fact that really isn't that much to discover once you get there.",
"The people who know where to look for the secrets are the same people who won't tell: magicians. The key to most magic is misdirection. If they tell you how it's done, it can ruin their own tricks. \n\nWatch \"Fool Us\" with Penn and Teller. For the really good tricks, they sort of hint at how it's done but they almost never outright ruin it.",
"No truly great magic trick is secret for one reason - they are all patented. \n\nWhile there are exceptions, loop holes, and litigation is messy and largely unsuccessful, it is still common to patent magic tricks. Keep in mind that most magic acts can and are classified as performance art, and are afforded the same protection as your favorite musical artist (though proving infringement is much more challenging).\n\nAs to where to look patents up, not sure.\n\nSource: _URL_0_",
"Sorry I'm on my phone but if you get in YouTube look up magics greatest secrets revealed it was a series of videos that displays magic tricks that are shown in shows .\n",
"[Start here](_URL_0_) and work your way through the whole series.",
"There really are no secrets in magic. There's also nobody looking for the secrets.",
"There are a lot of people who don't want to learn the secrets. I hate spoilers. So I'd rather not know.",
"As Penn likes to state if you want to find out how to get a little bullet from one side of the stage to the other with out the audience noticing then go to the patent office. ",
"There are lots of conjuring and illusion forums on the net. They tend to explain things in cryptic terms, a bit like Penn and Teller on Fool Us, such that only those in the know will understand their explanations.\n\nFrom what I can tell, as an outsider, it's still a profession that's dominated by the books. Even then, when you visit a magic shop they put the books they don't mind you seeing out front and you have to ask for the deeper books by name.\n\nThat being said, many magicians have made videos revealing how they did some of their biggest tricks. Derren Brown's *The Devil's Picturebook* is a great video for anyone that's still convinced that any thing he does is even remotely related to psychology. (Was anyone ever really?) And of course, there's always YouTube with it's thousands of tutorials.\n\nIn short, they're a secretive bunch but plenty of secrets are out in the open. They share a lot but like to keep the sharing within their 'circle', though you can obtain these materials if you are tenacious enough.",
"The fact is, almost no old trick remains secret. If you want to know how a trick is done (and you probably don't, since it can ruin the magic), just Google \"how is (insert the name of the trick and the magician\" done?\"\n\nThe reason it's not much fun to look up tricks is that most of them aren't really cool tricks. They are slight of hand practised hours every day for years. You can find Dani Daortiz' guide to card magic, and he's possibly one of the most amazing magicians today, and every one of his tricks is explained. I've practised one of the harder ones for about a year and a half right now, and I am still not good enough to do it in front of people. \n\nPenn and Teller, for example, reveal tricks now and then. According to Penn, they have to specifically design tricks that they reveal, because most tricks are something like \"I practised dropping the ball into my jacket pocket from a strange angle for thousands of hours until I could do it without anybody noticing.\"\n\nNew tricks are designed all the time, and those are usually figured out within minutes and the explanation ends up online. Nobody cares, though, since the fun part about magic isn't how they did it, it's the show, the experience, the misdirection. You go into the show knowing that they are going to lie to you, that they are going to fool you, you are watching to see how they do it, and, if they are good, they still fool you! That's the fun. Who cares if you can figure it out later or if not all of them fool you?",
"A lot of magic tricks are not so much a linear, one-use only monolith. Most sets are actually modular in terms of how the trick is done. There are some basic \"modules\" like palming, distraction, false bottoms, mirrors, contortionist assistants, and fake doves. But it's how you put them together to make one \"act\" of your show. And each module can be used multiple ways.\n\nEver wonder why comedy and magic are often seen together? It's because they have the same root: delivering the unexpected. You lead your audience to a premise which then has a different conclusion than one expects. In comedy, it's how you make a joke: alter the conclusion in some clever way. Each part of the act is made up of \"building blocks\" that chain together to make a structure. Then BAM.\n\nSo while many sites can tell you how to palm a card, hide a dove, remove an audience member's watch, and so on... they don't tell you the whole act. Like how many dictionaries will give you definitions, but not tell you how to hold a conversation. You're left doing the speaking. Does that make sense? So, while Swedish is spoken by millions, just giving you a Swedish-to-English dictionary won't tell you how to hold a conversation with a Swede. You have to learn all the parts, the grammar, the quirks, and practice, practice, practice.\n\nOlder acts are public; the Library of Congress has some of Houdini's books, for instance. There are TONS of books about street magic. And lots of Youtube videos. But the true acts, the ones of legend, are very elaborate combinations that in order to understand, you have to know a lot of basics.\n",
"I would categorize magic tricks into 3 separate categories.\n\n**The Classics:**\n\nYou can usually find most \"classic magic tricks\" on the internet already. TV shows such as \"Magic's greatest secrets finally revealed\" have pretty much all of the classic magic tricks that have been around for decades. These are the tricks that have stood the test of time and are your \"generic\" magic tricks.\n\n**The marketed magic tricks**\n\nThere is a pretty big market for magicians to buy and sell magic tricks. These are all the tricks that are more confidential, and you usually see street magicians such as David Blaine using these. They are usually sold on a DVD or as a digital download. You can look to websites such a _URL_1_ , _URL_0_ , and _URL_2_ for these.\n\n**Magician's personal tricks:**\n\nThese are created by the performer themselves. These are the tricks that they share the secret with nobody apart from fellow magicians. These are the really good tricks that people like David Copperfield or some of the people on Penn and Teller's Fool Us use. They do not sell or give away these tricks at all, so there is no way for any one to fully know exactly how they do it, which is why they aren't on the internet for everyone to see. These tricks can also be very expensive to set up and perform.\n\nSo, it depends on what you mean by \"great magic tricks\". It really depends on who is performing and what the trick actually is. As someone who's done magic for pretty much most of their life, I can tell you that there are many tricks that are readily available on the internet already, you just need to know what to look _URL_3_ someone in this thread mentioned already, many magic tricks have a name, but you *filthy casuals* don't know the formal names of many of them, so you're left googling \"How to do that David Blaine magic trick\" or something of the likes, and you get crap for results because you don't know what the trick is actually called."
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87lgaq | why can't you make emergency calls with communication apps like skype? having wlan access in areas with no cellphone reception or landline isn't exactly an unlikely scenario. | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/87lgaq/eli5_why_cant_you_make_emergency_calls_with/ | {
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"When you're on something connected to the Plain Old Telephone System (POTS), every entry point has a distinct 911 call center it is supposed to go to. Landline in your house? They know where to route it. Cell phone on a tower in a back road? They know which tower you're pinging off of, and so which call center to route you to.\n\nIf you're calling from your laptop while you're on business in New York, when your regular office is in San Francisco, but your VPN endpoint is your corporate headquarters in Austin Texas, how the hell are they supposed to know where to route the call?",
"You can make emergency calls, provided you know the phone number of the nearest police station. Usually, you don't - you dial 911 or some other shortcut code. Alas, that shortcut code works geographically. If a cell tower in Topeka gets a request for a 911 call, it is routed to the Topeka call center. The Internet is not geographic, which makes Netflix mad, so there is no way to know the location of the call. If you Skype to 911, are you going to be happy if you get the Redmond WA emergency center because that's where Skype's world headquarters is? Unlikely.",
"at its core 911 isn't a number, but a feature code that calls somewhere. its like asking why you can't *69 on voip. some people when calling 911 via voip will get the correct office but not the emergency response dispatchers. \n\nif you find yourself in an area with internet access but not cell reception often, look into wifi calling. also every landline can call 911 even if it's disconnected (but has a ringtone) and every cell phone can call 911 even if it reports no service (only if another carrier has a tower nearby)",
"This is Skype covering their ass. Traditional telephony companies are required to maintain highly reliable access to emergency numbers. They face investigation, fines, even losing their licence if they don't maintain service levels - we're taking 99.999% levels. This has driven highly redundant networks - which come at increased cost. Alternative voice apps don't have the legal requirement so they save money by skipping redundancy. And that's why they include the instruction not to make emergency calls. In the UK you used to see similar warnings on cordless phones, which require mains power to operate - wired phones can function in a power cut."
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a420ap | how do buttons on electronic devices have more than one function based on how long you press them for? | Like when you want to completely turn off a smartphone you hold down the power button for five seconds, but pressing the same button for just one second simply locks the screen. The same for an iMac where the length of time you hold the power button changes what happens, and there’s (apparently) multiple outcomes depending on how long you hold the button for.
Button, how you do so many different things?! | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/a420ap/eli5_how_do_buttons_on_electronic_devices_have/ | {
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"When you depress the button, it allows electricity to flow through a gap, like turning on a faucet. Another circuit measures how long that electricity flows for. When you lift your finger, the flow of electricity turns off, and an action is performed depending on how long the electicity was flowing.. Sometimes there is also a time limit; once 5 seconds is reached, your iMac turns off regardless of whether you lifted your finger or not.",
"Using the smartphone as an example. The software on the phone determines the action not the mechanics of the button.\n\nWhen the button is pushed it just says \"hey the \"power\" button is being pressed. It keeps getting that signal until you let go.\n\nThen when programming the phone essentially you say \"IF the power button is pressed for more than 2 seconds THEN power down\" while having another condition that says \"IF power button is pressed for less than 2 seconds THEN turn the screen on or off\"\n\nI tried to keep this ELI5, it's much more complicated and there are many different pieces of software that are needed to perform this function but that's the basic idea.",
"You can program em however you want, being pushed down and being released are 2 different triggers you can use, and those 2 things can be used to determine how long it's held down for which you can use as another trigger. Can also do different things if other buttons are being held down at the same time, lots of possibilities there.",
"Electronics aren't only able to tell when buttons have been pressed, they receive events when buttons are released as well.\n\nThe software can just look at the difference between the pressed and released time to decide what action to take.",
"So imagine there is a little person inside the phone. They've got a stopwatch, and a chart, and a little panel of buttons. And there's a light that comes on whenever you push the button.\n\nThe moment they see the light come on, they start their stopwatch.\n\nEvery time the watch ticks, they look at the chart. The one for the phone's power button says something like \"if the button is released, lock the screen; if the button is held for five seconds, shut down the phone\".\n\nAnd they do that - if you hold it down long enough for the stopwatch to count up to five seconds, they hit the button on their panel that says \"shut down\", which turns on some *other* lights in other rooms that tell everyone to save what they're doing and get ready to go to sleep, then eventually tells the person hanging out in the power room to pull the big switch that shuts everything off. \n\nBut if you let go before that, then they stop their watch, check the time, and hit the other button on their panel that says \"lock screen\". Which, again, turns on some other lights in other rooms, telling the people there to do whatever they may need to do to get ready for the screen lock, then to lock the screen, and ultimately tells the person in the power room to pull the lever that shuts down *some* parts of the phone.\n\nOf course there are not actually little people in your phone or computer, but there are different bits of software running on multiple computers inside your computer that do these things. Macs have a separate computer called the [System Management Controller](_URL_0_) that is *always* on as long as the computer has power; it does a bunch of low-level things but one of its most important jobs is to sit there watching the power button and wake up the rest of the computer when you push it! And it is a complicated enough entity that it can get confused and need to be reset.",
"so it used to be that buttons would be hard-wired to a power source and physically either connect or break the circuit between the power source and the rest of the device.\n\nNowadays, they are more complicated devices with pressure sensitive states that will tell a circuit or piece of software (depending on the design) how long the button is held down for before being released, and that will in turn run through logic that dictates what to do with that kind of key-press.\n\nBehind the scenes there is some bit of hardware or software that is programmed to do something like \"wait for power button to be pressed, then start timer and wait for power button to be released or for 30 seconds to pass. If released and timer is under 5 seconds, toggle screen on/off. If released and timer is between 5 and 30 seconds, show menu. Else hard shutdown phone.\" which will either turn off your screen if you tap it quickly, present the on-screen \"restart phone, turn off phone\" menu if you hold it down for longer than 5 seconds, or hard shutdown the phone if you just keep holding it"
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5lpqkx | why is it so hard to completely prevent clipping of 3d models in video games? | To be clear, I know nothing about programming or 3D graphics. Naively, I would think you could just give objects some property by which they cannot pass through each other. Yet I see some degree of clipping in almost every big studio 3D game. Why is this so hard to fix? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lpqkx/eli5_why_is_it_so_hard_to_completely_prevent/ | {
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"It comes down to hitboxes. These are imaginary cubes drawn around \"things\" in games. The more detailed the hitboxes are, the more computations need to be done to determine if things collide. \n\nLets say you have a minecraft dude. His hitboxes are simple because he's already a few cubes. Its easy to do the math to determine when one cube hits or intersects or runs into another cube. Or if I shoot your minecraft dude with a gun, all I have to do is aim within the imaginary hotbox cubes that surround your dude. Pretty simple. \n\nBut as the 3d models of things (your Halo dude, that explody barrel, the monster) get more complex, the less ideal a few cube hitbox is going to be. no, you want the hitbox for your character to match the geometry of your character. If your Halo dude had a simple single hitbox cube, if you got a rocket anywhere in that imaginary cube it would count as a hit. But thats bullcrap because you totally jumped that rocket, it went _between_ your dude's legs. \n\nSo now, to be more accurate the hitbox model that represents where your dude \"is\" has to be made up of a bunch of smaller geometric shapes. Maybe, the hitbox model of your dude is almost as complex as the visualization model of your dude. But as you add complexity to that model, all the math to calculate whether bullets, rockets, explody things collided or hit your dude, get a lot more complex. And complexity is fine, but there's only so much processing power available, given your game client and the server have to calculate not only whether your dude got hit by that grenade blast, but the other 63 dudes on the server. \n\nIts a similar thing to the calculations on how your dude is affected by the geometry of other things. Your guy is leaning up against a wall? If the collision/hitbox model of your guy was really detailed, and the geometry of your dude's model was programmed to do it, you could model individual limbs (nay, in some games with ragdoll physics, individual bones) and how they interact with a wall, a crate, riding that horse... but again, complexity and \"realism\" brings computations. So the guys who write game engines have to strike a balance between \"well maybe the wizard's flowing robes sometimes clip into the wall he's standing next to, but at least a 64 person battle has a decent frame rate\" vs. \"we have simulated character models down to individual chest hairs. But you can only get 2 frames per second.\"",
"Vfx student here. From what I know, In order to do that would essentially require creating everything as physics objects or create individual hit boxes for each element in the game. Not easy and can really place a burden on your computer. I am sure there is someone more experienced in this topic, but depending on how detailed the models or elements in the game are, it's just easier to allow clipping in a few of the elements rather than miss a release date or spend money trying to correct the problem.\n\nHope that helps."
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fr2ofs | what does it mean to sing “in key”? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/fr2ofs/eli5_what_does_it_mean_to_sing_in_key/ | {
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"A key as we understand in the west (there are some non western cultures which dint follow this theory) is a set of 7 different notes. In the key of C Major its C D E F G A B. For a singer to sing in key the singer has to sing using those notes. Thats the basic explanation but of course, music goes deeper than that and you can deviate from just those 7 notes to create tension and make things interesting and still be within the key. \n\nA duet in key is the same. Both singers are singing in that key but maybe while one sings C, the other one sings a E note. Not the same note but still in key.\n\nThere is no standard key pop songs are in. It can be any key, major or minor.\n\nSomeone who understands music could identify a key easily by its quality (major or minor) but its a bit harder to identify the tone of the key (C or A or G...etc) thats where perfect pitch helps.\n\nA good singer should be able to sing in several keys. But there is more to being a good singer than just singing several keys too.\n\nIn the western tradition we have 24 different keys. C, Db, D, Eb, E, F, Gb, G, Ab, A, Bb, B. All of those major and minor.",
"Key in this sense is shortened from \"key signature\" which is the particular combination of sharp and flat notes for a given musical scale. E.g. in the key of C Major there are no sharps or flats; in D Major there are F# and C#. That said, to create the desired effect in the music, you sometimes use notes other than just those notes.\n\nGenerally to be \"in key\" means to be in tune with the other performers, or to be using notes or chords which fit in with the key signature and style of the piece at a given time.\n\nPieces of music can absolutely be changed from one key to another - this is called transposition. Sometimes this can be to make a piece easier for a performer's range; or sometimes it can be to alter the whole tone of the piece e.g. by changing from a major to a minor key. _URL_0_ this is a good example of that; _URL_1_ and this in reverse.",
"I'm a singer. \n\nTrying to ELY5 ... \n\nYou know how words in poems rhyme in a happy way, or sometimes not? The same goes for the musical pitches in a song. Certain words \"rhyme\" or not like certain notes \"chime\" or not. We call this chiming *harmony* and when it doesn't chime, it's called *inharmonic*. You know that funny face you make when someone sings a wrong note? It's because their note didn't chime with the notes of the song. \n\n > How do men and women duet together and sound good? Wouldn’t they be in a different keys?\n\nMen's and women's ranges are about an octave apart and an octave is a range that chimes. So as long as the note they are singing is a chiming note in the song, even though their ranges are farther apart, they are in the same key (key signature) because the key signatures start over at each octave.\n\n > Would someone who understands music be able to listen to a song and immediately identify what key it is in?\n\nNot exactly, but depending on their own talent, they might guess within a few notes. This is not an important skill, though. They figure out harmony by understanding the harmonic distance from the note they want to sing along with. In a poem, you need not know the technical poetry name of the meter or rhyme scheme, you just have to make choices like the one you want without knowing what it is called.\n\n > Is a good singer someone who can sing in lots of different keys?\n\nI don't know of any singer, good or bad, who can only sing in one key. While key signatures are a technical thing, we sing to what we are hearing or intending. We can be a good singer even if we never heard of something called a key signature.\n\n > What is a key? Does it just mean hitting the right pitch?\n\nSinging \"in key\" or \"out of key\" means singing right or wrong pitches of a tune's melody or desired harmony, yes. \n\n > How many keys are there? \n\nLike a piano, 7 white keys and 5 black keys so 12. The piano has more than 12 physical keys but it's still 12 because the notes repeat up or down as higher or lower octaves. \n\n > Is there a standard key that most pop songs are written in? Can someone sing a song and sound good but be singing in a different key to that which the song was originally written in?\n\nNo, there is no single standard key. Some songs are written in the composers favorite key and then translated (transposed) into the performer's favorite key.\n\nHowever, there are harder keys than others for some of the popular instruments. It's harder, for example, to play songs written in Db (said as Dee Flat) on a piano. Some musicians will avoid those keys in favor of ones that are easier so that they can learn do the song well more quickly.",
"What does it mean to sing \"in key\"? The answer depends a bit on who is saying it and to whom. In a casual and less \"musician\" context, \"in key\" could be interpreted as \"in tune\". Meaning hitting the right note or pitch.\n\nIf it is among musicians with fairly good understanding of theory or experience, then \"in key\" likely refers to the key signature. This defines most of the notes that are used in the song. There are 11 different notes in the Western scale. The most common note progression \"do-re-mi-fa...\" is the major key which can be in any of the 11 notes. If you play the piano, usually the first key you'd experience/hear is the C major key because it uses only the white keys on the piano. Things can get a lot more complicated after that. \n\nThere is no standard key for songs (pop or otherwise). If you are a new guitar player, you might prefer to have songs written in the key of C major because the chords used in this key tend to be the first chords learnt on guitar. \n\nSinging a song in a different key and sound good? Generally no. Unless the vocalist has a very trained ear and has a pretty sophisticated understanding of music, in which case, they can improvise. \n\nSinging with multiple singers. There are two popular methods (but many more). One is to sing in unison - everyone on the same key and note, perhaps the man singing an octave below the woman. Singing in harmony - in this case a melody will be accompanied by another \"melody\". Generally these are written or planned out ahead of time. Duets, specifically, are usually written so that there are two distinct singing parts - sometimes by the songwriter and other times by arrangers. \n\nNot everyone (in fact, few) people will be able to identify a specific key just by listening as this requires something close to what is termed \"perfect pitch\". However most people with training will be able to hear the difference between major and minor keys and probably pick up a common key like C major or G major. They can tell it is major or minor but probably cannot easily identify that it was in E or G etc. \n\nWhile it is good to know music theory and be adept at improvisation, it isn't necessary (unless you're classically trained) for most pop singers to \"think\" in terms of keys. Most songs have instrumental intros that will \"guide\" the singer to the key (nearly automatically). All singers can sing in a range of notes that will accommodate any key to the extent of their vocal range. It is probably (generally) far more important for singers to train their vocal techniques to improve power, support, range, enunciation, transition and timbre of their voices and, of course, their own vocal stylings."
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523u2o | how do my lungs know what to do with the oxygen i breath in? with side question | I want to know how our lungs know what to do with the oxygen we breath in. How does it distribute the oxygen throughout or bodies?
Side question: Do our lungs know how to tell whether or not we're breathing in something harmful, or is that why it's so dangerous when we inhale toxic gasses? Do our lungs take the poisonous gas as if it where just regular air, sending it throughout our body potentially harming us in the process? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/523u2o/eli5_how_do_my_lungs_know_what_to_do_with_the/ | {
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"Your lungs are made up of tiny balloons, called alveoli, they're connected to your windpipe by branching smaller pipes. The alveoli are surrounded by small blood vessels and they provide a lot of surface area that lets the air you breath in interact with your blood chemically even though there's a physical barrier of cells. Its just chemically favorable for oxygen to dissolve into the blood and the carbon dioxide to come out, in the same way that its favorable for the carbon dioxide in soda to come out. \n\nBy using a large surface area through many small alveoli the rate at which oxygen and carbon dioxide are exchanged is able to keep up with the amount of blood that's being moved. The newly oxygenated blood returns to the heart and the heart pumps that around the body without any specific direction. Other factors may cause blood vessels to contract, like when very cold the body may try to keep its core warm by reducing blood flowing to the extremities where it will lose more heat. But that's not directly influenced by the lungs or even the heart. \n\nSome poisons an pass into the blood similarly, many simply do damage to the lungs themselves."
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4fyy4x | does temperature affect if you can get tanned/sunburned? | In winter I know the sun's rays hit at less of a direct angle, so less heat gets through and the temperature is lower. Does this still happen with UV rays or can they penetrate the atmosphere enough?
I've heard of people getting sunburned in the snow. I'm just not sure if burns are rare in the winter because we bundle up or if it's because the sun is less effective.
Similarly, if a spring day and autumn day both had the sun in the similar angle to the earth then would there be a noticeable difference in the sun's effect on you?
| explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4fyy4x/eli5_does_temperature_affect_if_you_can_get/ | {
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"No, it doesnt affect it. The radiation that caues sunburns goes through clouds as if they werent there. People just spend less time outside when its cold, and wear more clothes. wearing clothes pretty much stops sunburns completely.",
"It's the UV radiation that causes sunburn/tanning, not the heat. \n\nIf you were on the ISS and jumped out an airlock naked on the sunny side, you'd get severe sunburns before you died. ",
"It is the UV rays from the sun that cause sunburn, not the heat, so the temperature outside makes no difference. In winter, very little of our skin is exposed, therefore very little of it is vulnerable to those rays. But many a skier or snowboarder can tell you that you can indeed get sunburned in the winter. You can get sunburn on cold days, hazy days, cloudy days. You can get burned faster in the winter, in fact, because of the UV rays bouncing/reflecting off snow and ice, the same way you're likely to burn faster if you're out on the water. Not only are you getting the UV rays directly from the sun, you're also getting the ones reflecting off those surfaces. ",
"Allow me to introduce you to a popular style of tanning amongst us snowboard instructors called [goggle tan.](_URL_0_)\n\nThe snow reflects UV light onto people and since we wear these masks all day we end up with strangely tanned faces.\n\nSo no, temperature does not have a pronounced effect on tanning / burning."
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1syu0t | what would happen if a pedestrian pulled out a rocket launcher and shot a rocket at the oval office when the president is inside? | Are there defense mechanisms around the white house against such attacks? What are some defenses that are set up by the secret service to protect the president? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1syu0t/eli5_what_would_happen_if_a_pedestrian_pulled_out/ | {
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"Thats a secret, played to much GTA?",
"Walking around with a rocket launcher is pretty conspicuous. You can't just \"pull one out.\" ",
"It is possible you could get off one RPG. But with the special construction of the building and windows and the lack of accuracy at the distance you would ne firing at (Constitution Ave. is about .5 miles from the oval office) and the fact that you would be guessing as to the exact target (The oval office is not visible from the street) the odds of any presidential injury would be minute) ...and you would NOT get a chance for a second shot!",
"Given our current president, they might throw the shooter a parade. \n\nJust kidding. I know the NSA is reading this.\n\nI love Obama.\n\nReally.\n\nGotta go...someone's at the door...\n\n"
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5uouz9 | why do cell phones always get super buggy/get slower when a newer version of the comes out? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5uouz9/eli5_why_do_cell_phones_always_get_super_buggyget/ | {
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"The cell phone is built for the OS that was out when it was released. As a result, newer OS will not run as well as the one that the cell phone was built for. Also, the newer OS usually is more memory-intensive, so the phone naturally runs slower.\n\nThink of it like trying to run Windows 10 on a computer meant for Windows Vista. Even though Windows 10 is significantly superior, it probably would slow down the computer because it uses lots of memory.",
"To build on what u/sizzling-bacon said, a lot of smartphone users don't back up data and start fresh when they upgrade the OS. Easier to run smoothly from a fresh start, but even that only gets you so far.",
"I am more or less convinced that it's planned obsolescence - the updates they give out near/after a new product launch \"breaks\" older phones, so that their owners will get a new phone. \n\nIn reality, there is absolutely no good reason a phone should get slower or become buggy just because of age (well, where age is \"small number of years\"). If it does, it's either planned, or the software is genuinely awful. ",
"As an android user with a Moto X, the only effect I've seen from updating my OS is vastly improved battery life. Never have I run into planned obsolescence, is that a thing other manufacturers do? I heard apple does it.",
"It's known as [planned obsolescence](_URL_0_) and is both a direct result of unchecked rampant capitalism, and an example of something completely unsustainable.\n\nWe live in an awesome time right now. Our grandchildren are screwed, tho."
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3nl7wo | some people say obama lowered the deficit, some say he raised it more than any other president. who is right and how can there be such a gap in analysis here? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3nl7wo/eli5_some_people_say_obama_lowered_the_deficit/ | {
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"He definitely lowered the deficit. The thing people say he raised more than any other president is the *debt*.",
"There is a difference between debt and deficits. Deficits are the money that is spent over your revenue. Debt is the overall amount of money owed to lendors (both public and private).For example, I spend $10 over the weekend, but only made $5 during the week. My deficit is $5. Now, if I continue to have that trend over the course of a four weeks, my overall debt is $20. \n\n & nbsp;\n\nPeople say Obama lowered the deficit because discretionary spending has gone down in recent years. I would argue that has more to do with the Republican House of Representatives forcing discretionary spending cuts through CRs and the Budget Control Act. I do not believe the president would have proposed those cuts if he maintained a Democrat controlled house past 2010. Meanwhile the debt continues to go up since we still have (smaller) deficits. ",
"Each year (at least for a while now) the government has spent more money than it raises. The result of this is that the debt has increased every year for a while now (2001 was the last year of surplus; the Dot Com boom had come and gone and the war on terror was beginning).\n\nHowever, the debt doesn't increase by the same amount each year. The largest deficit ever to occur did indeed happen under Obama, in 2009. That fiscal year there was a $1413 Billion deficit. Many attribute this to the economic climate that had been formed under George W. Bush, though. Since that time the Obama Administration has cut the deficit to $492 Billion (FY 2014), so the deficit is certainly going down. However, the fact that that's a deficit means that the debt is still going up, so every year is a record level of debt.\n\nIt is worth noting that the deficit under George W. Bush was generally pretty small, at least compared to recent years. It ranges from a $127.3 Billion surplus in 2001 (a budget proposed by Clinton) to a $459 Billion deficit when he left office in 2008. Democrats will tend to look at the large deficit during Obama's term as evidence that Bush screwed up the economy while Obama had to try to try to fix the mess that was left to him. Republicans are more likely to look at the deficit as evidence of irresponsible public spending (esp. Obamacare). Both positions have their merits.\n\nIf you want to look at deficits over the years, they can be seen [here](_URL_0_), recorded since 1940. \n\n******\n\nEDIT: another important piece to this puzzle which is important to remember is that while the President is in charge of actually spending and raising money, the amounts that he can spend and raise are specified by congress. The whole notion of blaming/commending the president tends to ignore this important facet of the situation. ",
"The highest deficit ever was in FY 2009, which runs from October 2008 to September 2009. \n\nPresident Bush submitted a budget proposal for FY 2009 which was passed in June 2008, carrying a 1 trillion dollar deficit, which was by far the highest deficit budget ever passed. By the time 2009 rolled around and Obama became President, it was clear that the 1 trillion deficit wasn't going to cut it, and even more spending was authorized, bringing the deficit up to about 1.5 trillion.\n\nSo if you look at who was President when the deficit occurred, Obama raised the deficit more than any other President, but if you look at who originally submitted the budget with that high deficit, Bush raised the deficit. Fundamentally, either perspective is kind of stupid - the deficit went way up because of the massive economic collapse. Blaming it on a President or a party is meaningless. ",
"Let's stop committing a fallacy in this thread by attributing government spending to the President. The President signs the spending bills, but the Congress passes those bills. All the credit and all the blame should go to the Congress. Yes, the President may propose a budget, but it can't happen without the Congress. Too many people think the President does everything and ignore their Congress-Critters, leaving them in office for far too long...\n"
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8j6msr | how does our mind perceive different melodies with different feelings? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8j6msr/eli5_how_does_our_mind_perceive_different/ | {
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"If you are asking how different songs have different feelings / why some songs are \"happy\" and some are sad... it's apparently about social conditioning. _URL_0_\nBesides this, there are some intervals that sound uncomfortable just because of how the sound frequencies react- if the sound waves overlap outside of very specific zones, they sound \"off\". Other things like chord progressions and melodies that are predictable are more satisfying and catchy because your brain is pleased by being able to guess and be right- and is uncomfortable when it can't. Tempos that are near our heartbeat/walking tempo feel more relaxed, while higher tempos have more energy/are more intense because they are like your running pace or a high heart beat. "
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431r1m | why are cultures so varied? is there anything that is universal among all cultures? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/431r1m/eli5_why_are_cultures_so_varied_is_there_anything/ | {
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"culture is an interesting thing. Some things CAN be found among virtually every culture in human existence. \n\nMastication is one example. This is also called \"pre-chewing\", and something a mother does for her child. It is used frequently when food suitable for an infant isn't available. \n\nThe mother chews the food, and mouth-feeds it to the child. In appearence, you might think of it as a french kiss, when in reality she is feeding her child food.\n\nit isn't as common in first world countries, because we have baby food specially designed for children to handle it, but we can still find examples of mastication in pretty much all cultures.",
"You might want to post in /r/askanthropology as well. \n\n > Is there anything that is universal among all cultures?\n\nSome sort of religion and marriage is observed in every culture we know of so far. \n\nThen there are behaviours that are thought to be universal because they are based on instinct, such as smiling, laughing, and crying. Blind people still smile, even if they've never been able to see what a smile looks like. However, the proper situations to do any of these things vary based on culture. ",
"The incest taboo is pretty much the only thing consistently found in every culture. What is considered incest varies though, and of course despite being a taboo it is often broken.\n\nTalking about economy, politics, religion or anything like that kind of falls apart, they're western categories, and you can always find something that fits in them, but it might not have a whole lot in common. The stock market and Trobriand gift exchange (where they give personal gifts to each other thought to be infused with a part of their soul) are both filed under economy, and can be studied with reciprocity theory, but by then it's so unspecific that you can take basically anything and call it universal, so we don't.\n\nThe same for kinship, there's a lot of general trends in kinship, but nothing universal. Except the taboo on incest. \n\nI also like to joke that every culture either was given or discovered on their own a way to make alcohol (with the notable exception of Inuits, probably because it's really difficult to make it from whale fat), so alcohol is a constant of human culture as well, but I don't have any sources on that.",
"Laughter and Smiling carry the same meaning across all cultures, I believe.\n\nAnything else probably falls under, \"It depends.\"",
"I think that just about every culture has some kind of variation of meatballs.\n\nAlso, for some strange reason, just about every major mythology includes dragons in some form.",
"Wikipedia has a list of dozens of cultural universals. _URL_0_\n\nFor example: Personal names, gender roles, marriage, etiquette, sexual jealousy, music, units of time."
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9ls4ey | how did the enigma machine use double stepping to encrypt and encode messages? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/9ls4ey/eli5_how_did_the_enigma_machine_use_double/ | {
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"Think mechanically not electrically. \n\nIt was all levers and ratchets that worked off a button being depressed. The one rotor moves one notch every time. The second rotor would normally move one notch for every full rotation of the first rotor. Same with the third rotor moving one spot for every full rotation of the second rotor. \n\nDue to how the mechanics worked when the third rotors ratchet fell into place to move the third rotor it prevented the ratchet for the second rotor from clearing the catch and forced the second rotor to “double step” \n\nI’m not sure if this was an intentional design thing to try and make it harder to decode or simply an “ease of mechanical design” thing that they just didn’t see as an issue that needed to be solved since all the machines would work that way so it didn’t impact the effectiveness of the machine. ",
"It was actually a bug.\n\nEnigma uses three or four rotors and an Umkehrwalze or reflector to rewire the keyboard before actually putting power in. So the rightmost rotor always steps. Sometimes, the rightmost rotor lines up for the middle rotor to step, so on the next keypress they both step. Then the third rotor is immediately able to step on the next press, as it's now in alignment as well.\n\nThis inserted a recognizable difference in how Enigma transposed characters after that double step, which was realized by Bletchley Park."
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3fpcdi | why is a "cup" of coffee actually 4oz-6oz? | Why isn't it 8oz, like an actual cup? My coffee maker makes 12 cups, but it's actually only 48oz. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fpcdi/eli5_why_is_a_cup_of_coffee_actually_4oz6oz/ | {
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"Because coffee cups are traditional that size. So when it says cups it is referring to the number of traditionally sized cups not cup as in the unto of measure. In recent times coffee cups have gotten a lot larger though.",
"A cup of coffee means a drink container of coffee, not 8 fluid ounces of coffee. Drinks are often measured in half-pints to remove this confusion."
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8wdzvw | how does a commercial “slushie machine” create such a perfect slurry of chewable ice? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/8wdzvw/eli5_how_does_a_commercial_slushie_machine_create/ | {
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"There is a metal cylinder that the flavored liquid is dumped into, and on the outside of the cylinder is a bath of freon or other supercold liquid. Inside the cylinder is a set of paddles that constantly rotate and scrape any ice crystals that form off the cylinder walls. So the instant a tiny ice crystal gets formed in the slush liquid, it gets scraped loose. That's how they do it. \nYou can make the same stuff if you have an ice cream machine. Same process but just a different starting liquid."
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4yo20n | why is removing your hat is considered a sign of respect? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/4yo20n/eli5_why_is_removing_your_hat_is_considered_a/ | {
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"I don't think a definitive answer exists, but it seems likely that the act is less one of logic and more one of custom. It has been suggested that it is a hangover from a time of armour, and that removing ones helmet or headwear was simply a sign that one was in the company of those they felt safe with. When encountering potential or current rivals, the removal of the armour or covering on ones head or face would surely be a signal of respect, almost as if waving a white flag. If it stayed on a different tone would be set.",
"It all comes from knights.\n\nIn the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it was customary for knights to show their faces during formal events in which they wore their helmets.\n\nThis meant that tournaments, appearances at court, etc would require the visor to be lifted or the whole helmet to be removed.\n\nIt became customary to do it with your right hand as it was the hand you wielded a weapon with and therefore showed that you meant no harm.\n\nThis eventually evolved into the modern military salute.\n\nThe lower classes typically didn't have helmets, but did have hats. So to show they had no ill-will they would remove their hats when they bowed or knelt.\n\nOf course bowing has largely fallen out of fashion so to show respect and that you bear no ill-will during certain occasions, we now remove out hats and either hold them at our sides at attention or over our hearts as a pledge.\n\nIt's essentially a man bearing himself without ornamentation during these events.\n\nExceptions being women and soldiers.\n\nSoldiers are exempt because the hat or helmet is part of the uniform or practical, and because they are acting as a soldier and not an individual.\n\nWomen are exempt because traditionally hats were very ornate and sometimes physically pinned to the hair and involved ribbons and flowers and all that jazz. In fact it is considered rude for a woman to remove her hat except when in one's own home, or when the hat is a distraction.",
"For now I assume it is the complete removal of the headgear instead of only lifting it.\n\nGo back hundreds of years, when the knights are still there. They took their helmets off when they were in the company of people they trusted, or in the company of people they wish they could trust. As such it was a sign of respect to the others.\n\nAfter the knights era the custom kept going, to make yourself more vulnerable without headgear and thus showing the people you are with that you trusted and respected them.",
"From _URL_0_:\n\n“Taking the hat off is the modern remains of the ancient custom of\nKnights who removed their helmets in the presence of those they felt\ntheir friends and thus, before those they wished to honor by showing\nthat they trusted them. A man removes his hat before a woman to show\nhis respect. Touching the brim is but a perfunctory salute.”",
"If you meant removing your hat when meeting someone, /u/ACrusaderA 's answer is the closet we can get to an answer.\n\nIf you meant removing your hat when entering a building. In the west, the Bible is the source of that tradition. It is seen as disrespectful to God. (1 Corinthians 11)",
"I would add to all the great answers about medieval history that not all cultures seed it as a sign of respect. In Judaism wearing a hat is considered a sign of humility, a symbolic recognition that there is always something above you. So for many Jews keeping headwear on is a sign of respect. ",
"Revealing your male pattern balding to strangers puts you at mercy to their ridicule of your insecurity.\n\nIt's like saying \"I trust you enough with my balding secret\", but with a hat.",
"As far as I am aware it comes from helmets. If you removed your helmet it meant you trusted the other person. If you are talking to an anemy under a truce it means you respect him enough to believe he won't hit you over the head with a sword. \n\nBut you might want to /r/AskHistorians ",
"I was always told that leaving your hat on is a sign that you're intending to leave soon, interpreted as you not liking the people who are present. I always assumed that was a back-rationalization for a rule that exists from custom, likely due to knight customs as others have said.",
"I'd just like to point out that this is a little culturally biased. From a different perspective, for example in sikhism, covering your head is a sign of respect. To enter a gurdwara you must cover your head.",
"I prefer the \"Archetypal Explanation\"\n\n\"Carl Jung understood archetypes as universal, archaic patterns and images that derive from the collective unconscious and are the psychic counterpart of instinct.[1] \"\n\nOne established archetype is of an untrustworthy person who covers their face. Any time you see a person who is covering their face - with sunglasses, a hat, even a beard - your unconscious mind becomes concerned that the person is trying to mislead you. This isn't anything you can control, you can only be partially aware of it. \n\nA great example is used in Star Wars. The evil people cover their faces almost all of the time - the storm troopers, Darth Vader, Palpetine, Boba Fett. The heroes don't cover their faces - unless they're trying to mislead people or evade detection. \n\nArchetypes tap into instinct, culture, stories that go back generations. So, someone who wants to establish credibility with another person will do what they can to get rid of bad archetypes - such as removing their hat.",
"It harkens to a time when men wore hats to protect their heads from the elements. Continuing to wear it indoors is like wearing a raincoat indoors. You look like a rube who doesn't know how to make himself presentable in polite company. It might mark you as (*shudder*) working class.\n\nIn modern times, when hats are a fashion statement, you just look like a dweeb who wears sunglasses indoors or who doesn't comb his hair.\n\nDoffing the hat is just a formality. You *would* remove your hat, but you must be on your way, so here's a token gesture of acknowlegement.",
"My friend wore a sock hat inside a chapel during a funeral, that's when I realised he's a complete bastard.",
"In Christian circles, it's actually a lot older than knights, it goes back as early as Augustine. In his work \"On the Trinity,\" he talks about how men removed their hats in church because hats were a sign of one's social status. Women kept theirs on mostly because only prostitutes and pagan priestesses ever had their hair uncovered in public. Augustine did some exegesis of one of Paul's letters to the Corinthians about a passage where Paul tells men to uncover their heads and women to cover them (for these reasons), and he assigned some theological backing to them. So in Christian cultures (especially western Europe and beyond) it became a sign of respect that men removed their hat. And women kept their on as a sign that they had good morals. \n\nMen extended that from church to home because it's rude to parade your higher social status to your host if you're their guest. "
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2tggaq | why windows would make you choose run as administrator and not just give you administrative privileges to begin with. | You know, since it's going to allow those privileges anyway. | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/2tggaq/eli5_why_windows_would_make_you_choose_run_as/ | {
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"To prevent unwanted programs (i.e. malware) from making changes to your sensitive files, such as your system settings or the Windows system files.",
"When you run as administrator, you can easily mess up your system, for example by deleting important files, or by changing settings necessary for your computer to work.\n\nForcing you to run as administrator only when you need to makes sure you know what you're doing.\n\nIt's also a good warning that something might be dangerous: if you download something that's supposed to be just a tiny game but it asks you to run as administrator, that's a warning that it might be malware.\n",
"The fact that Windows didn't have separation of administrator privileges by default for a long time was a _major_ factor in the reputation that Windows was chock full of viruses and Macs (and *nix, with a lesser market share) are not. When any old program can do anything that an administrator should do, it's easy to write a virus. When, by default, those programs must ask for permission from the user, then malware must depend on the user just clicking on through and OKing the request to delete all of their files. Still probably worth it to write viruses targeted at the largest market share system (Windows), since lots of users don't know that they're allowing malware to trash their system, but at least there's a \"lesson learned: I actually let that software destroy my system\" aspect to it, instead if it \"just happening\".",
"It's Windows' way of \"protecting\" the user from malware. The idea is that if you unknowingly download a program that is malicious, you would have to explicitly give it admin access, and thus, you have hopefully checked first to make sure that program is safe.",
"Running everything with full control of the system by default was one of the biggest reasons that Windows 95/98/XP systems were so prone to nasty viruses that were impossible to get rid of. If you're just running something as a normal user, you can only mess up your own data. Running as admin you can fuck up the whole system.\n\nIt helps you remember that Windows is designed to be a multi-user operating system. Even if you're the only person on the computer, there's stuff running that's kept separate from your \"bubble\". If you're in an office environment, there's a good chance you flat out *can't* run things as admin.",
"See the popup you get when you run something as administrator?\n\nIf every program ran as administrator by default, you'd always get that popup. That would be seriously annoying.\n\nSo why do they have the popup?\n\nThe idea is that it's impossible for any program to do things that require administrative privileges without showing the popup. That means that if a virus tried to overwrite part of Windows, for example, it would have to show the popup first. And then you'd be like \"well I didn't do anything, what's this popup from?\" and click Cancel.\n\nThere are a few flaws with the scheme:\n\n* Many users don't read the popup, they just want it to go away, so they click on OK. (Not reading popups is one of any tech support person's biggest frustrations)\n\n* A malicious program can still access all of your files without being run as administrator. See: CryptoLocker.\n\n* If the popup is shown at a time when the user is expecting it (like when they install a program) then the user might not realise it's from a different program, and click OK anyway."
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5ttnqn | literally vs. figuratively | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5ttnqn/eli5_literally_vs_figuratively/ | {
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"Holding a live grenade in my mouth, then pulling the pin, would literally make my head explode. \n\nThis explanation figuratively made my head explode. Note, my head did not actually explode.\n\nBoom!"
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5lp2tu | why do humans feel the need to identify so strongly with groups? | It would appear that when looking around you find people who associate all of their ego and being into one to two(or more) categories. Things such as Astrology, MBTI categories, Professional sports teams(that they root for, but are no a part of), Religion, etc.
Using the example given, Ive seen people ask: My MBTI is XXXX So what hobbies would be good for me?, We don't like 'sport team' fans here. , My Sign in 'x' what career should I have?
These seem to be very closed minded and ignore the more personal aspects that would be better off answering these questions. Is it due to misinformation or a tribal need to fit in somewhere? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/5lp2tu/eli5_why_do_humans_feel_the_need_to_identify_so/ | {
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"We are social creatures by nature, so we have a natural impulse to find commonality with other people. Then, as we associate with a group, we adopt the qualities and beliefs of the group as part of our identity. \n\nTherefore, people defend and adhere to the ideals of the group because an attack on the group is perceived as an attack on the individual's identity itself. Even a carefully worded challenge to the idea itself will be perceived as an attack on the person, rather than an idea. ",
"Humans and nearly all animals abhor ambiguity. Evolution has made us feel weak and exposed as individuals. We crave safety in numbers for security. To enable that instinct we like the comfort of having our ideas confirmed by others, so much so that we'll sometimes do unconscious mental acrobatics to square the ideas of others' with our own. That instinct makes us quick to ally ourselves with others for sometimes obscure or trivial reasons. ",
"What you are referring to is a relatively recent modern phenomenon -- and by that, I refer to your assumption of big city life as the setting for such tribalism.\n\nThrough most of human history, human beings have lived in tribes and similar social groups with populations averaging one hundred people. In contrast, there were approximately 300 people at a recent San Diego Comic Book convention and over 50,000 people at a recent Burning Man. A modern professional American football team has close to 50 members (though only 11 may be on the field at a given time), which means that for much of human history our tribes were only a little more than double the size of a modern professional American football team!\n\nFor most of human history, an individual would be born into a society with fewer people than one might find today at a busy mall. That individual would grow up in that one tribe, quite possibly never interact in any significant fashion with anyone from another tribe, face all his or her life's experiences in that one tribe, and die having known only people in that one tribe.\n\nKeep in mind that general literacy is a relatively new phenomenon and interconnectivity is barely a couple decades old, so for most of human history, individuals would also lack any means of learning about other peoples, other cultures, other individuals (other than the dangers of exploration and the rumors from those who had explored). Individuals would know nothing about human beings except the other members of their tribes and whatever communal stories that tribe shares.\n\nIt makes sense that any sane individual would want to get to know quite well the 100 or so people in his or her world, would be deeply influenced by those 100 or so people, and would find all sources of identity in those 100 or so people.\n\nWhat you are seeing today is that ancient impulse, an impulse that has worked so well for humanity for millennia, continuing to manifest itself in the modern big city.\n\nIt's not closed mind at all if one looks at it from a genuine historical perspective; however, one could argue that it's vestigial.\n\nI suspect what you are concerned with is more the hostility that now exists between the tribes, but if so, that is a different answer, and I have a Wall of Text going already.",
"humans have always been communal by nature. It's how we have survived. Other primates do it as well. It is why cultures have always had prejudices and distrust against the 'outsiders' who do not share the same values or ideals of a group, or could threaten the unity and power hierarchy of the group, etc.\n\nHowever, as our ability to connect with others has evolved alongside with our notion of society and civilization, we are becoming a globalized melting pot of ideals and cultures and identities, and shit has gotten fairly strange. "
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6zdy6k | why do people live in disaster-prone places? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6zdy6k/eli5_why_do_people_live_in_disasterprone_places/ | {
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"My family just went through Harvey. We were lucky to come out of the experience unscathed, but most of my family lost everything. My boyfriend and I have talked about relocating to a place where hurricanes aren't a threat. We just can't afford it. That is the same for a lot of people that I know. The cost of uprooting your whole life is astronomical when your working two jobs to make ends meet. I was born and raised here. My whole family is here. I just don't have the money or resources to relocate. ",
"Basically, the conditions that make a place disaster-prone a few times out of the year can also make it a glorious place to live the rest of the time. For instance, the tropical marine climates that are loved by so many people also breed the most powerful hurricanes due to greater evaporation off the sea.\n\nAnother example goes back to the first civilizations, which settled near large river deltas because they were the most agriculturally rich places. Such deltas were enriched partly by floods that would deliver nutrients from highlands, but the benefit only came later in the year - when the actual floods happened, they could be quite dangerous to nearby settlements. \n\nStill, those rivers provided so much food that cities grew there and became the sites of the most prosperous ancient civilizations. People may also be attracted by the beauty of mountainous terrain that could signify, in some geographies, a tendency toward earthquakes.\n\nOther reasons may also apply: A region may be bleak enough that the cost of living is low, so people who already live there may be economically stuck there while some outsiders may move there to maximize the value of their savings. That accounts for the persistent habitation of a lot of the Midwest that otherwise has no attractions despite powerful storms, tornadoes, and floods."
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6i6tc3 | why do we trim our nails? | [deleted] | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/6i6tc3/eli5_why_do_we_trim_our_nails/ | {
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"Our ancestors used nails extensively as tools for prying open nuts, making tools and whatnot.\n\nOur current environment has barely any activities which would wear down our nails naturally, so we need to trim them occasionally.",
"Your nails grows at a constant rate. And if you use your fingers and toes daily then the nails will wear at the same rate they grow. However modern humans are rarely treating our extremities as hard as they were designed to. A lot of things are able to adapt to this for example with thinner muscles, softer skin, etc. However the nails still grow at the same rate. So you have to cut your nails to prevent them from growing too long. If you look at for example a horse which is usually working harder then usual after we have bread them then they need extra protection for their nails so that they do not wear them down to the root. And for example dogs that spend a lot of time on soft wood and carpets will get long claws and have to have them trimmed as well."
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3fo1sy | how can somebody be born the wrong gender? isn't it based on chromosones? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/3fo1sy/eli5how_can_somebody_be_born_the_wrong_gender/ | {
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"Gender (whether you identify as a man or woman or whatever) is not equivalent to biological sex (what organ falls between your legs). It may not be convenient that these two concepts don't line up, but they don't and it'd be helpful if you split them up in your mind.",
"You would be correct if your definition of gender is biological. However, there are new definitions becoming commonplace. \n\nSex = the biological sex you are born with. \n\nGender = the sex that you identify with. \n\nSo yes, biologically aka sexually you are born as a male or a female. However, internally your gender identity may be of the opposite sex. ",
"It isn't only based on chromosomes. For example someone can be born XY but be phenotypically (have the outward appearance and identity of) a woman, because she has androgen insensitivity. Here is a [picture](_URL_0_) of women with androgen insensitivity syndrome. \n\nAs for people with gender dysphoria, it is thought to be caused by a brain that has a more male or female structure, opposite of their sex.",
"No.\n\nSex, which is the physical side of things (whether someone has a penis or a vagina) is based on chromosomes, but even there, abnormalities can occur.\n\nGender, which is the mental side of things, is strictly a brain thing, and not dictated by chromosomes as far as we know. We actually still have very little understanding of what exactly dictates gender (though there are a few things that we have excluded such as upbringing) but we do know that someone's sex and someone's gender do not have to match.",
"Maybe I can add something more to the discussion. \n\nAs a brief background human sexuality can be divided into three major components:\n\n1. Biological Sex: Your biological sex is determined by three traits, your sex chromosomes, your internal genitalia, and your external genitalia. In humans we have males (XY chromosomes, internal testes, and external penis), females (XX chromosomes, internal ovaries, and external vagina), and [intersex](_URL_1_) individuals (2/3 above are mismatched. For example, individuals born with three sex chromosomes XXX, XXY. Or people born with [androgen insensitivity syndrome](_URL_2_)). \n\n2. Gender: someones subjective inner experience of who they are. Laymen often mix up *gender* and *sex*. Gender has more to do with cultural influences on the way we act and how this relates or may not relate to our biological sex. Words like *feminine* and *masculine* describe our genders. In our two-sex, two gender system we equate biological females with feminine attributes (gentle, emotional, caring, motherly, domestic, slender, beautiful), and we equate biological males with masculine attributes (athletic, strong, dominant, bread-winners, tall, assertive). Some people may feel they strongly identify with the proscriptions and prescriptions of what it means to be feminine, others may not. For example, a biological female may act or feel more comfortable in a masculine role. \n\n3. Sexual orientation: who we are attracted to. We may be attracted to one sex (homosexual, heterosexual) or we may be attracted to both sexes (bisexual) or not really attracted to sex or sexual experiences at all (asexual). \n\n**Gender is who you go to be as, orientation is who you go to bed with, and biological sex is the equipment you use.**\n\nSo where does transexual and transgendered people fit in? Depends on the definition we use, but in general we are discussing the *gender* aspect of human sexuality and how it relates to *biological sex*. Some transexuals prefer this term to denote people who have undergone sex-reasignment surgery. It goes beyond feeling a disconnect between ones gender and sex (e.g. a masculine female, or feminine male) they are a man trapped in women's body, or a women trapped in man's body. Sex-reasignment surgery isn't an option, its more of a necessity. In this way the term *transexual* has more to do with changing ones *biological sex* to match more closely ones *gender identity*. Whereas a transgendered person may not have the desire at all to change their sex.\n\nHowever, many people (including those who have undergone sex-reasignment surgery) have moved away from the word transexual because it is associated with many negative stereotypes. Transgendered and transsexuals have had and continue to have a very hard time being accepted even within the larger LGBTQ communities. For example, they are often treated as mentally ill deviants within the medical community and society at large, although acceptance I would argue is gaining ground. \n\nOthers within the community use *transgender* as an umbrella term to connect all people who can't perfectly align their gender and sex within our two-gender, two-sex system. This would include people like cross-dressers, transvestites, and people who identify as gender-queer, as well as transsexuals. Additionally, \"transsexual is considered a misnomer by some people because the underlying condition is related to gender identity and not sexuality. Others prefer to identify as transsexual, and object to being included in the transgender spectrum. Anthropologist David Valentine provides context for this objection in his book *Transgender, an Ethnography of a Category*. He writes that transgender is a term coined and used by activists to include many people who do not necessarily identify with the term. He observes that many current health clinics and services set up to serve gender-variant communities employ the term, but that most of the service-seekers do not identify with this term.\" In other words its pretty confusing, even to people who study, work with, and identify within this group.\n\nI think what is really hard for most of us to understand is that trying to find ones sexual identity within culture that is set up linguistically for a two-sex, two-gender system is really difficult. Not all gender-queer people are going to identify under the terms *transexual* or *transgender*. I think we have come a very long way as a society in accepting homosexuality and the terms and concepts therein...but we have a very long way to go with trying to understand the needs and desires of the transgender/transexual communities. When in doubt ask, and be polite...the same way we would be when asking someones name.\n\nOthers may also be interested in reading about the research being conducted at Rochester University: [Men are from Earth, Women are from Earth](_URL_0_)...and also Cordelia Fine's book [Delusions of Gender](_URL_3_)."
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"http://rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=5382",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex",
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgen_insensitivity_syndrome",
"http://www.amazon.ca/Delusions-Gender-Society-Neurosexism-Difference/dp/0393340244"
]
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||
7ebbag | why do we deflect compliments? | explainlikeimfive | https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/7ebbag/elif_why_do_we_deflect_compliments/ | {
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"I know that I do it because if I accept the compliment, it feels like I am praising myself. For example \"You have such nice hair\", \"ah, no, my hair is terrible\" because I don't like my hair.\n\nIt is rude because it signals to the person \"I care about my opinion more than I care about your opinion\", so it's best to just say \"aww, thank you.\"",
"Many reasons:\n\nThe experience is too personal and intimate, which can be uncomfortable.\n\nYou do not believe the compliment, so it can be difficult to sit with it and accept it.\n\nYou may feel like it is too self-gratifying or self-indulgent.\n\n\n\n",
"Because we not see or hear ourselves the way others do. \n\nWe get used to our reflection in the mirror so we think our features are unremarkable. This happens with thoughts and opinions as well. \n\nHumility is also socially valued so we deflect to display humility.\n\n",
"Downplaying compliments is a hallmark trait of social animal behavior. In terms of human behavior, it shows humility and acquiescence instead of unnecessary aggression and dominance.\n\nThe idea of showing your peers that you are not a threat and that you do not perceive them as a threat goes very deeply in our ingrained social behavior. Ever wonder why it is common to nod your head in a downward motion when you greet an acquaintance but you tilt your head back to acknowledge a good friend? It is because in the former case, you are simply acknowledging the presence of another person near your physical space while in the latter, you are showing that you trust the other person just based on your recognition of him/her as a friend by leaving your neck exposed for a moment.\n\nThe idea of social pliability is increasingly important as the sophistication of an animal's society also increases. Humor is often used as an equally effective alternative to humility, with the expectation that the audience understands the humor. This is all to put your peers at ease and not to have them view you as a threat. \n\nIf you ever have the chance to interview/converse with psychopaths and sociopaths directly without any other outside influence, you will notice that if you compliment them on their specific character traits, notably intelligence, they will downplay your assessment. If you instead point out the intelligence of certain actions they completed, on the other hand, they are a lot more likely to take pride in what they did and become more assertive. If you intentionally throw out an inaccurate compliment about one of their actions, they are *likely* to correct you, especially if you downplayed the importance of one of their actions. This is because in the former case, the psychopath is trying to relate to you so that you lower your guard while he/she enjoys your praise, whereas in the latter case, he/she is trying to correct you on what he/she believes to be an abject truth, over some previously committed action.\n\nThere is a reason why confidence is admired but arrogance is not. Social pliability allows a person to navigate the tiny differences in details, prompting people to be humble when everyone knows the praise is deserved, and aggressively assertive when the situation presents an appropriate benefit to the supposed risks. \n\nOn an entirely different note: constant compliments from one source is just as damaging and suspicious as constant criticism. It is hard to trust people who resort to either tactic."
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nmirs | how does my bone marrow help someone with leukemia? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/nmirs/eli5_how_does_my_bone_marrow_help_someone_with/ | {
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"Leukaemia is the name of a range of different cancers which have in common the over production of a type of immature white blood cell called a 'blast' in a healthy person white blood cells are the soldiers of the immune system, but with leukaemia these 'blasts' are faulty and ineffective in fighting infection and their over production causes problems with producing enough healthy red blood cells. Red blood cells are responsible for carrying oxygen to cells and for blood clotting.\n\nBone marrow is where new blood cells are made. \n\nFor a bone marrow transplant the patient's own faulty immune system is first killed off with (with radiation and/or chemicals) and then a new immune system (those white blood cells) is introduced via a bone marrow donation. \n\nThink of bone marrow as being the factory where blood cells are made, leukemia means the too many of the wrong type being made, so the problem can be fixed by installing a new factory. ",
"Leukaemia is the name of a range of different cancers which have in common the over production of a type of immature white blood cell called a 'blast' in a healthy person white blood cells are the soldiers of the immune system, but with leukaemia these 'blasts' are faulty and ineffective in fighting infection and their over production causes problems with producing enough healthy red blood cells. Red blood cells are responsible for carrying oxygen to cells and for blood clotting.\n\nBone marrow is where new blood cells are made. \n\nFor a bone marrow transplant the patient's own faulty immune system is first killed off with (with radiation and/or chemicals) and then a new immune system (those white blood cells) is introduced via a bone marrow donation. \n\nThink of bone marrow as being the factory where blood cells are made, leukemia means the too many of the wrong type being made, so the problem can be fixed by installing a new factory. "
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1j5hzk | can fish be depressed in their tanks? | My empathy for fish depresses me when I watch them swim on circles. I'm starting to believe it is unethical to keep fish as pets unless they have large aquariums and as close to a natural habitant as possible. Why aren't they taken more seriously as opposed to a cat or dog being kept in a box? Is it because they can't make noise or communicate distress? | explainlikeimfive | http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1j5hzk/eli5_can_fish_be_depressed_in_their_tanks/ | {
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"Their brains are not large or complex enough to process higher level thinking, such as depression, or emotions in general. There is a point where organisms become more than biological machinery, but below that point, organisms pretty much operate on an \"if...then\" basis. Pain for example, in higher organisms, has a psychological effect of \"distress\". Below that, it's more like \"if damage detected on membranes, then swim away\".\n\nIt's debatable, for instance, if lobsters can feel pain, or if it's just detecting damage and is activating a flight response. Though, in the case of a goldfish, they are simply too primitive to feel pain or distress, in anyway that would beneficial to the species.\n\nEDIT: To expand upon that, you must understand why emotions are beneficial to species, and why its detrimental to others. Higher organisms, particularly mammals, group together in herds or packs. In these groups, caring for young and defenseless members, mating partners, pregnant members, and sick/injured members benefits the group as a whole. It takes a lot of energy for higher, more complex organisms to reproduce, so caring for and bonding with these members is a high priority. Also, it's necessary for them to signal distress and receive help from other members.\n\nBut for fish on the other hand, which lay hundreds of eggs, it's not necessary to bond with any of them, or even with a spouse. Their prime concern is strength in numbers, and even though they roam in \"schools\", it's so that a few can be sacrificed to benefit the whole. It's an entirely automatic and subconscious act, where any kind of emotions would be burdensome for survival."
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